Jan Schlegel
People, Portrait, Reportage
D-Land
During the last years Schlegel visited 61 countries, always in search of the distinctive beauty and variety of the people. The picture’s compositions, the highly contrasted play of light and shadow, the inner dynamics and the extraordinary perspectives, open a crack in the door of secret-treasures of this world that are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Schlegel often stays several weeks with the tribes to get to know and understand its way of life. With his assistant Schlegel lives in modest circumstances among the people, which he tries to portray. Step by step the photographer gains their trust, in order to make pictures in the desired nearness and intimacy. With his photographs Jan C. Schlegel gives us a glimpse on foreign cultures and allows us to discover something about the uniqueness of every single person.
Biography:
Jan C. Schlegel was born in 1965 in the Black Forest of Germany. He is married and has three children. He discovered his passion for photography at the age of 14 with in the scope of a Photo course at school. For his first own camera, the reflex camera Minolta XG9, the 14 year-old saved long. As winner of a AGFA photo competition with focus on portraits, Schlegel took part in a seminar by the photographer Walter Schels in the Staatslehranstalt für Photographie in Munich. Under Walter Schel’s influence Jan C. Schlegel began to ascertain his fervor for black-and-white portraits. Toni Schneiders, a distant neighbour of Schlegel, became the second important mentor for the young photographer. After a two and a half year long apprenticeship at Lake Bodensee Schlegel was a professionally trained photographer by the age of 18. Schlegel works for the University of the Nations. He teaches courses in photography and takes students through Africa and Asia, mentoring them as they discover their own way of seeing. Since 2011 he is exclusively represented by Bernheimer and has been shown with great success on art fairs in London and Paris.
Languages: German