Botho Walldorf

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Botho Walldorf (born March 23, 1945 in Lauterbach on Rügen ) is a German photographer and local researcher .

Live and act

Walldorf was born on the run from Mewe in West Prussia, he had a brother. His father had been the mayor of Mewe and died shortly after the end of the war. As a half-orphan botho Walldorf spent his school days from 1951 to 1961 in Gammertingen . After that he was in Hechingen grammar school from 1961 to 1964 . He completed an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk in Stuttgart from 1964 to 1966 and has been working in data processing in the central Neckar region since 1970. Since 1979 he has lived in the district of Reutlingen in Wannweil .

He started taking photos in 1960. He photographed his home town of Gammertingen with his Dacora dignette . He was particularly interested first in the railroad, then in everyday life in the village. In doing so, he was guided by the photographer Flora Bader, who around 1930 also took photos of the everyday world in Gammertingen and the surrounding area. After taking courses at the adult education center in Inzigkofen, he begins to systematize his approach and to underpin it with photo-ethnography. He wants to document the declining everyday culture of the Alb. To do this, he not only uses the camera, but increasingly also the Uher Report portable tape recorder . Methodologically, it is a mixture of participatory observation , visual recording, photo interview and oral history . His way of photography is in the tradition of social documentary photography like Dorothea Lange , Walker Evans , Russell Lee , who have been photographing the American Midwest since 1935 on behalf of the government. But Walldorf always financed his work out of his own pocket. In 2003 he got a job in the town hall in Wannweil , where he recorded the history of his pictures.

In August 1987 Botho Walldorf bequeathed around 300 files with photos from the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn AG (HzL) as well as from Gammertingen and the surrounding towns in the middle Laucherttal , which he had compiled from 1978 on, to the Sigmaringen State Archives . The inventory, which had grown to 532 files by 2009, also contains a large number of negatives and slides. From 2007 to 2009 negatives from the inventory were digitized and posted on the Internet.

On September 7, 2018, he received the home medal of the state of Baden-Württemberg in Waldkirch .

Walldorf is the nephew of the painter Elsa Walldorf.

Publications

  • Botho Walldorf: Gammertingen station and workshop during the steam locomotive era. Self-published in Gammertingen 1985.
  • The Hohenzollerische Landesbahn from the time it was founded until today. published by the management of the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn AG, Hechingen 1987.
  • Botho Walldorf: Inneringen, history in photographs. Self-published in Gammertingen 1998, with bibliography by B. Walldorf 1971–1998.
  • Botho Walldorf: 100 years of the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn 1899 to 1999. Self-published by Gammertingen 1999.
  • Botho Walldorf: Life around 1900 Born in Gammertingen. Self-published in Gammertingen 2002 (main work by B. Walldorf), ISBN 3-00-008-134-8 .
  • Botho Walldorf: Feldhausen and Harthausen before motorization. Self-published by Gammertingen 2002, ISBN 3-00-008-134-8 .
  • Botho Walldorf: The Hohenzollerische Landesbahn in the 1960s. Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2002, ISBN 3-89702-494-2 .
  • Botho Walldorf: The Hohenzollerische Landesbahn in the 20th century , Erfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-86680-125-7 .
  • Botho Walldorf: Rural Hohenzollern. Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2016, ISBN 3-95400-720-7 .
  • Botho Walldorf: Train Stations in Hohenzollern: Reception Buildings and Operational Offices through Times , Erfurt 2019, ISBN 978-3-96303-014-7 .

literature

  • Ulrich Hägele: Villages, People, Artifacts. Botho Walldorf's photographs of the Swabian Alb , in: Schwäbische Heimat 2019/1, pp. 5–10.
  • Everyday life on the Alb - photographs by Botho Walldorf , exhibition catalog, ed. by Ulrich Hägele, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-17-035359-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Finding aid Dep 44 T 2 of the Württemberg State Archives, Sigmaringen State Archives.
  2. ↑ Ulrich Hägele: Villages, People, Artifacts . In: Swabian homeland . No. 1 , 2019, p. 5 ff .
  3. ↑ www.youtube.com
personal data
SURNAME Walldorf, Botho
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer, author, publisher and local history researcher
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Lauterbach (Ruegen)