Kai Stefes

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Kai Stefes (born January 26, 1970 in Wevelinghoven ) is a German photographer . Since 2011 he has been working in his studio in Grevenbroich in the rooms of the studio community E1 , of which he is a co-founder.

Life

Kai Stefes was born in a small town between Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mönchengladbach on the Lower Rhine. Photography fascinated him from an early age. After graduating from secondary school in 1986, he first completed an apprenticeship at the Deutsche Bundespost as a telecommunications technician. During this training he bought his first SLR camera and began to work with it intensively. The apprenticeship was followed by a high school diploma and a degree in electrical engineering at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences. During this time, the decision to make photography his profession developed.

photography

His photographic career began with an internship with the Cologne fashion photographer Walde Huth-Schmölz , followed by a classic photographer training and a few years as an assistant and digital support. He has been working as a freelance photographer since the beginning of 2000.

Kai Stefes avoids committing himself to a certain technique or style, which leads to a wide variety of results. For him, the techniques and stylistic devices are only tools to generate emotions or effects in pictures. He also uses a wide variety of cameras for his projects. For the book “Through the East - what was, what is, what remains?” He shot analogue black and white medium format film with a Pentacon Six . It is important to him that the pictures remain honest. Even with digital photos, he only processes what would have been possible in analogue in the laboratory. His photos are characterized by an authenticity that has often been lost in the digital age. In 2013 Kai Stefes illustrated two books for Droste Verlag.

25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he realized a long-planned project in which the FRG-born and raised photographer pursued his fascination for the events around autumn 1989 and drove through the former GDR in an MZ ES250 / 1 . On this trip he looked for traces of this once “demonstrated away” and now “disappeared” state and wanted to know what was left of the spirit of the peaceful revolution.

Kai Stefes himself says about his job: “To face new challenges every day, to always find the most interesting point of view of a motif in a wide variety of tasks, to get to know interesting people, new places and cultures and to capture them in the interplay of light and shadow. For me, these are the most beautiful aspects of my job. "

Influences

Kai Stefes knows that he is sustainably influenced by the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson , Robert Doisneau , Peter Lindbergh , Anton Corbijn , James Nachtwey and Sebastião Salgado . But also fashion photographers like Pete Ruppert and Stephan Latusek , whom he assisted, were exemplary for his photography. Kai Stefes repeatedly gets suggestions from other artists. The regular exchange of ideas in the studio community E1 with the artists Conny Hellfeier, Kerstin Nowak, Stoi, Thomas Möcker, Robert Lietzke and Gereon Riedel deserves special mention.

Exhibitions & actions

  • 1999 joint exhibition “picture dance” in the Krefeld culture factory
  • 1999 Group exhibition in the Düsseldorf Chamber of Crafts
  • 2010 Solo exhibition "Lisbon - Happy Melancholy" Cafe Kultus, Grevenbroich
  • 2011 joint action of the studio community E1 "Insomnia - 23.5 hours of art"
  • 2011 Group exhibition "Insomnia - 23.5 hours of art" Cafe Kultus , Grevenbroich.
  • 2012 Joint exhibition of the studio community E1 "Chronos - different perspectives" in the Grevenbroich shipping hall
  • 2013 Book publication "Highlights - Ruhrgebiet" by Droste Verlag
  • 2013 Book publication “Ruhrgebiet - Enjoy & Lifestyle” Droste Verlag
  • 2014 project trip "Through the East - what was, what is, what remains?"
  • 2015 book publication "Through the East - what was, what is, what remains?"
  • 2015 Exhibition “Through the East - what was, what is, what remains?” In the Grevenbroich dispatch hall
  • 2016 Exhibition “Through the East - what was, what is, what remains?” At the German Division Memorial in Marienborn.

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the trail of the GDR with the MZ , in: RP-online from June 24, 2014, accessed on June 13, 2016.
  2. ↑ Photographer in search of the old GDR , in: RP-online from December 10, 2015, accessed on June 12, 2016.
  3. ↑ What is left of the GDR? , in: Volksstimme of May 21, 2016, accessed on June 12, 2016.
  4. ↑ With the camera around the world , in: RP-online from November 25, 2010, accessed on June 13, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Stefes, Kai
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Wevelinghoven