Daniel in Bolivia

“Schauraum” thesis show & book fairs Frankfurt / Hamburg

Daniel Hofer — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:18:41 +0000

I know it’s already 3 months ago but I finally manage to catch up and upload some photos from the thesis show in July. At school there wasn’t that much space so I was only able to show 3 framed large format photographs of my series “Salar” + the book .

After the thesis show I travelled to London to meet my colleagues Dave and Nate with whom I’m working on the Salar book project. They will contribute texts and in-depth information related to lithium production in the bolivian salt lake area. Furthermore, we are putting together an exhibition with my photographs, their texts and potentially also sound (interviews) material. Most probably, there will be an exhibition of our collaborative project in London in autumn 2012. More details to follow…

In september, the book “Salar” was among the top ten nominees for the getPublished Award 2011 at the Photo+Art Book Fair in Hamburg. Tomorrow the famous book fair in Frankfurt will open it’s doors, and “Salar” will be shown there at the both of the Buchlabor / FH Dortmund.

On November 11th 2011, I will participate at a one-night-show called “Atelier” at Pact Zollverein in Essen, showing “Salar” photographs and the book.

I’ll soon begin to build a new website, until then you’ll find a online version of the “Salar” here.

I’ll keep you posted on this blog on any “Salar” related events and hope that there is much more to come. Thanks for following my work!

The last steps… Framing!

Daniel Hofer — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:15:00 +0000

Last week I spent producing large format prints and frames. It takes a lot of time to make such wooden frames but I also felt very satisfied after I had polished and painted them for hours. In photography as much as in so many other industries and arts nowadays everything has become so digital, computer-based, that one hardly ever produces something with his own hands. A great deal of my time is spent clicking a mouse. And clicking a mouse. And moving a pen on my Wacom board without writing something, but moving colored pixel. So it was really fun to built the frames myself. And regarding the fact that it was the first time I did so, they turned out really really well! Thank you to my great friend Stefan Pastohr who let me use his workshop and helped me a lot on my frame adventure (you need beautiful wooden furniture or anything else for your company or house that includes wood? Contact me and & give him a call!) !

Below find a bunch of impressions from the last week and today, when I finished framing by turning my parents living room into my temporary workspace… So basically I’m DONE so far, my final diploma presentation will be held the day after tomorrow and from Friday-Sunday there will be a big show with all diplomas in Dortmund, including a party, film presentations, live music and more. Come over and check it out!

All details again here:
http://schau-raum.net/

June Update. Prepping the show, printing the book!

Daniel Hofer — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:09:09 +0000

Hey all, after some hard weeks of work I’m finally almost done! I’m still preparing the small exhibition that will take place in Dortmund next week (details here: “Schauraum“), but the book (actually in a pototype edition of 2) is already printed and bound!

But first, let me give you an update on what happened in June…

Basically, everything happened at the same time…Speaking with the printer, the bookbinder, the framebuilder, the guys who mount the pictures, and… somehow trying to make at least some money.

Here is a proof I made with Kreuberg based printer’s shop Ausdruck, to find out how the pictures look like on the paper stock I’ve choosen. Luckily, I didn’t have to make major adjustments on my files so printing was surprisingly easy.

More test prints and proofs were made for the upcoming exhibtion prints I’ll produce this week.

The night before I had to bring the files to the printer I still had so much stuff to do…The last days before deadlines are always stressful, aren’t they? I finally decided that the title of the project should be simply “Salar”. The next picture shows how Jonas Holthaus (who helped me with the design of the book – Thanks again, Jonas!!) and me try to find an interesting typeface for the front cover.

We did a bunch of variations, but in the end we decided to just print “SALAR” on the cover and not use a photograph. After almost one year of work and 10 weeks in Bolivia, we I finished the book last Wednesday and today I finally picked up the final book!

Unfortunately, that would not mean that I’m really done now. Some time ago I’ve started to think about the final thesis show and I made some tests concerning the size of the frames etc. The next pictures give an idea of that process.

Afterwards, I had a better idea on the sizes I would like to produce, so I made test prints, bought plexiglass and transported everything via train to Düsseldorf where a good friend who is a carpenter helped me to build 1 frame per size as a “dummy”.

As the whole school will be full with graphic & fotodesign diplomas next weekend, each student will only have some meters of wall to show his work. Thus, I will only be able to show a few pictures – but the book will be shown too , so if you are around stop by in Dortmund and you’ll see plenty of good photography!

08.07-10.07.11
FH Dortmund Thesis Show (Diplomausstellung), Design Department
http://schau-raum.net/

April/May update!

Daniel Hofer — Mon, 16 May 2011 08:43:50 +0000

Buenos dias, amigos!

After exciting travel posts from Bolivia in September and January, I must admit that sitting in my Berlin studio and doing post production / book design / preparing the thesis show etc. is not really that exciting for you, my dear readers (btw, almost 9000 clicks on this blog since August – not too bad!). But here is a tiny update/ overview on what’s happening.

First of all, editing roughly 2400 photographs is hard work. I spent a great deal of time on sequencing the selected photographs for my book. The next picture shows that I printed the pictures I liked all in a small size of 6*7 cm’s, which makes it easier to move them around and combine pictures in terms of spreads etc.

On top, that’s the material put together by place/colors/genre/topic … Beneath, i tried to put my favourite photographs in a sequence for the book, though that has already changed so many times! (For a larger version clck the pics)

I’m not done with the layout yet, but I wanted to figure out which pictures work with each other, maybe even as spreads, so I took snap shots of a couple of paires.

Watching the photographs over and over again, you really get mad and I must say that there are days when it’s quite hard to be motivated and continue the work – but as my final presentation and the thesis show will take place from July 8th-10th in my school in Dortmund, there are only 2 months left so I better keep working!

One strange thing that happens once in a while is that one finds so many new details in the scans one didn’t see before. For example the next photo (and I found that really shocking because I would never have expected that in Bolivia):

So far you might not notice something special, but then if you lighten up the shadows you see this:

A swastika (Hakenkreuz) tattooed onto the hand of a salt worker. I know that the swastika is not only a symbol that was used be the Nazis, also in India you do see it once in a while, having I think a religous/cultural (and not political) background there. But why do they use it in the Bolivian province? In case I ever come back, I’ll ask this worker.

The same guy together with my friend David Middlemiss who will contribute text to our book project (along with Nathaniel Freiburger). Dave, Nate and me will meet in Bristol/UK in July to bring together my photographs and their texts, and continue planning an exhibition of our project. We’ll also present the project to an institution / a great exhibition space in London, the people there seem to be quite interested in showing our lithium story there!

Some more pictures of my travels that so far didn’t make it into the tighter edit but I still like them…

Finally, I mentioned you get mad after looking at the pictures over and over again… I once noticed I photographed soo many bare light bulbs. If you turn them around ,they look like plants. Don’t they?

Everybody who’s around should come to the thesis show in Dortmund in July, it’s called “Schauraum” and I will not only show an exclusive first print of my book but also have some beautiful pictures on the wall

I hope that I will be able to have a bigger show with my photographs later this year in Berlin for all those who can’t make it to the Old West.

Invitations will come… Thanks for following / supporting this project!

February March Update

Daniel Hofer — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:52:23 +0000

Hey everybody!

6 weeks ago I came back from Bolivia, and since then a bunch of things have happened. First of all, I had to work quite a bit to refill may rather empty bank account. 93 rolls of exposed film got developed, and I then printed contact sheets and scanned a wide edit and quickly printed the pictures as small 13*18 cm (5*7 ”) copies.

Another thing that kept me busy was moving into my new office/studio in Berlin Neukölln. It’s a wonderful big space that I’m sharing with 6 other creative guys from various backgrounds (architecture, fashion design, graphic design, copywriter, art). So until July when I’ll have my thesis show in Dortmund I will probably spend quite some time here!

Here are some pictures of the space and some snapshots of the long-lasting editing process.

2 more pictures from a december visit in the office. Ice ice baby! And lots of snow on our wonderful huge terrace.

At the moment and that’s not going to change within the next weeks, I’m working on the edit and doing post production on the high-res scans (which means color corrections, cleaning the files of dust etc.). I also began to do some first layouts and think about how the book should look like, especially in terms of format and size but also in terms of the concept / sequencing the photographs. Another thing I’m about to start with is learning how to build wooden frames for my exhibition (there is a workshop connected to the office/studio space which I can use). As one always needs frames for exhibitions etc. I thought that this is a good moment to start making them myself! (Though not quite sure if that’s gonna be succesful. We’ll see.)

Ohh and I forgot: flare magazin (flaremag.de / flaremag.com) selected the “top ten german photographers under 30 years“, and I was fortunate enough to be among them, next to guys like Julian Röder whose work I really like! See the post here.

German TV Program on lithium in the Salar

Daniel Hofer — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:06:57 +0000

German Tv channel 3sat has a 30 mins documentary tonight at 9.30 pm. You can also watch it online and find more information here.

Last saludos from Bolivia

Daniel Hofer — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:47:42 +0000

Last week a made a 2 day tour through the Salar with a tourist agency, main goal was to take some more pictures which focus on tourism in the Salar. Only in winter time from Dec-Feb, occasionally a few inches of water cover parts of the salt flat and make the Salar a big big mirror. Fascinating to see and to drive through with a jeep. At the edge of the Salar we stayed overnight in a small village and it totally felt like Scotland – stone towers and walls and really green which is rare for the Bolivian Altiplano (highland).This was my last post from Bolivia. Will head to Germany soon and keep you updated how editing and making prints and design the book and exhibition will keep me busy until July!

Playing golf at 4300 Meters?

Daniel Hofer — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:28:27 +0000

The nowadays small village of Pulacayo, situated 18 kms from Uyuni at an altitude of 4100 (!) Meters, was home to the the biggest Bolivian silver mine of the 20^th century. In the 1940’s/50’s, up to 60.000 people lived there, an incredible contrast compared to 2011 as only 500 people still live in Pulacayo.

The cemetery of Pulacyo

As there where many European, specifically British and German engineers working in the Pulacayo mining industry, these people brought some European sports culture with them to the Bolivian Andes. One example for that: they constructed a golf course! An older man who remembered the golf course described me where it had been, and after walking an hour or so through the hills of Pulacayo I found something that could be the ruins of the golf court. That concrete kind of thing in the next photos, was this the teeing ground? It’s strange to imagine that people would play golf in such an environment – as the photos maybe show, this place can be terribly windy! For sure, this must have been one of the highest golf courses worldwide, at 4300 Meters!

One of several old, abandoned tennis courts.In Germany, we call this SEIFENKISTE (soap box, I guess that makes no sense )The old machine and metall workshop is full with old European machinerie from England and Germany. This one is from Wuppertal.These 2 tanks were produced recently in this very old workshop. They will be used at the lithium pilot plant soon.A locomotive from the German Ruhr Area (Essen).But the highlight of this day was the fact that I meet two Austrian guys, Michael and Thomas. They are producing a documentary film on Pulacayo and when we met they had their last day in the village after 6 weeks of filming. Their translator wasn´t available that day so when they made their last interview with “Franz” (see the next picture) I translated for them.Their film will be finished by the end of the year, we thought about combining my exhibition in Berlin with a screening of their film!One last thing: many many cars and trucks in Bolivia are used, imported ones from Europe, especially Scandinavia. Often there are still stickers of the old companies on the trucks – this one was Swedish I guess. Bolivians love VOLVO trucks.Taxi with japanese (?) lettering.Greetins from Room Nr 14 !

Tourism at it´s best

Daniel Hofer — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:00:00 +0000

After visiting the previous places at the Salar where I focused mostly on mining and work, I came back to Uyuni and continued some parts of my work which I had begun during my last trip. I photographed interiors of restaurants, offices and officials and some other Bolivian curiosities.
One of these curiosities can be found in almost every tourist agency (and there is more than a dozen of them in small Uyuni): people who have done a tour through the Salt lake area with an agency write on a piece of paper that they liked this specific tour agency, because the food was good or the driver was knowledgeable or whatever (most of these writings, doesn’t matter which language, say the same positive stuff – they are almost never critical). I think the value of these papers isn’t a big one for tourist who search an agency, but some are fun to read. And all these amazing Asian texts!
But first 2 photographs of my recent restaurant visits:

Here a small selection of recommendations:And finally another great socialist office (of the miners federation).

Getting to know Rio Grande

Daniel Hofer — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:28:58 +0000

After visiting the lithium plant I spend 3 days in Rio Grande where I had already been in 2010. I meet again Luis and his colleagues who are borax (a mineral and a component of many detergents, cosmetics etc.) workers. I had brought them some copies of the group photo I had taken the last time, and that kind of opened some doors for me. So the next 2 days I spent a lot of time with the workers, which allowed me to get closer to them and gain their trust. We had lunch and dinner together and I also hung out with them in their very basic accomodation which is nothing else than a room with some beds and no window, no electricity, not bathroom, no heating which in bolivain winter is really hard. The 7 seven guys are mostly between 18-30 years old, and being originally from La Paz it seemed to be hard for them to be away from their homes and families for several weeks before coming home for a week or so. Also, their work is physically challenging and more than one of them seemed to have pain in his back and knees at night, after 9-10 hours work, loading dozens of 50 kilo bags of minerals on trucks and train wagons.
Group photo with Luis and his workers. Remember that room?In this (new!) barrack they have one room for all of them.These 2 photos show my “accomodation” while I stayed in Rio Grande. This small village has no hotel or such thing, so after one night on the restaurants floor I finally stayed in the old medical centre of Rio Grande (next photo), thanks to a young dentist whom I met and how offered me this room. Thanks, Gualberto!Wednesday I wanted to take the bus back to Uyuni, actually during the day 2 buses passed through the village, but both were so crowded and full that there was no way for me and my luggage to get in. The bus looked like a japanese subway train during rush hour,totally over-crowded. But as I was not in a hurry, I stayed one more night. The next day I could get to Uyuni with a jeep which was way more comfortable , faster and with a great views on the landscape as the driver took another route than the bus.