Alfred Ulmer

Alfred Ulmer (born August 3, 1905 , † October 30, 1989 ) was a German chemist and railway photographer.

Life

Even as a schoolboy, Alfred Ulmer was fascinated by the railway . The " Alte Weinsteige " captivated him with its rack railway. He was equally enthusiastic about the large, heavy locomotives that drove up the mountains in the Stuttgart area. As a child he already played in his parents' living room with a steam train powered by an alcohol burner.

Ulmer came to photography at an early age through his older brother, who was employed as a technical merchant at the Contessa Nettel camera factory, later Zeiss Ikon . Ulmer had the opportunity to test various cameras before the Zeiss Ikon Miroflex , a robust, high-quality and foldable camera, became his camera. When the Zeiss company brought the Ikoflex III onto the market in 1938 , Ulmer procured this device as well. Ulmer only used the 35 mm Zeiss Ikon Contax camera, launched to compete with the famous Leica, for experimental purposes, but not for railroad photography.

The Stuttgart Railway Directorate soon became aware of the photographer and Alfred Ulmer received support from there after an interview. The free tickets and authorizations to enter the facilities made working as a photographer easier and more pleasant for him. But he turned down the position offered to him as a photographer by the Reich Ministry of Transport . Nevertheless, many of his photos were used as advertising for the Reichsbahn and thus printed in the Reichsbahn calendar , among other things .

Alfred Ulmer worked as a chemist in the laboratories of the Technical Works of the City of Stuttgart (TWS) and was therefore able to produce special developers. The recipes for these photo chemicals have been lost over time.

literature

• Rudolf Röder (Ed.): Old Masters of Railway Photography: Alfred Ulmer - Recordings from the RBD Stuttgart 1925-1945 . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-310-9 , pp. 3-7