Jürgen DOPATKA  Fine Art Photography

Artist's Statement

Jürgen Dopatka's interest in photography likely has its origin in the fact that his father used to work in a commercial photo lab. As a young kid in his native Germany, Dopatka used to play making photograms on left-over rolls of large-size photo paper found in the attic, even in the absence of developer and fixer. He gained first darkroom experience in his ad hoc kitchen-darkroom during his early teens. The final spark into dedicated photography was provided by a friend during his senior high school year, which opened his "photographic eye".

While Dopatka has been pursuing both black & white and color photography since the late 70's, during the 80's he has clearly drifted towards a very strong focus on black & white photography due to its unique possibilities of artistic expression. This is the zone where his conscious effort fades away and is taken over by a force coming from within.

Our world offers an infinite variety of shapes, form, surface, contour, lighting, reflection and texture. It is fascinating how Dopatka discovers these characteristics in a variety of seemingly mundane subjects that would elude most casual observers, an intuition sharpened from years of wandering and observing. He typically does not go searching for any specific subject matter, but he knows immediately when he has found one. Those discoveries are preserved in his prints, to convey and share the fascination he has experienced when composing an image. Many times his images maintain a sense of mystery.

Dopatka's strongest images originate from unusual views of modern architecture and nature, followed by more traditional nature and landscape images. Over the years, he also has been documenting vanishing ways of work and life, to both preserve these sights and to gain some insight to the wisdom those individuals have accumulated throughout their long lives.

Dopatka traditionally offers his images in editions strictly limited to only 50 prints, irrespective of image size. All of his images available have been printed and finished to meet museum quality standards, using only proven materials and processes to assure archival longevity.

While Dopatka continues to take color photographs as well, his artistic focus clearly resides on black & white images. For additional images and information, please also visit:


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© 2016 Images & Content by Jürgen Dopatka. All rights reserved.