niklas görke

Niklas Görke, b. 1974, immersed himself early in the picture world of the photo reports of the GEO and National Geographic Magazines, which his parents had subscribed to.

At the age of 11 he had his first small darkroom in the laundry room at home.

Although photography never left him, he studied law and initially worked as a contract lawyer in Friedrichshafen, Munich and Paris.

In 2008 the changeover to self-employment as a photographer took place, based at Lake Constance. In addition to the commercial jobs, primarily in the health sector and for medium-sized companies, there were reports and freelance work. He also attended a master class with Alex and Rebecca Webb in Oslo.

Starting in 2013, he developed photogrammetry systems for a company from Friedrichhafen, including 3D scanners with over 80 cameras.

After setting up the 3D scanning studios in Friedrichshafen and Frankfurt in 2014, Görke is again working as a freelance photographer in Frankfurt a.M.

Because his studio has a darkroom there, this made it easier for him to enter collodion wet plate photography at the beginning of 2019, which has been his focus almost exclusively since then. What fascinates him about this historical technique, in addition to the depth and liveliness of the exposed glass or aluminum plates, is how each processing step leaves its mark on the image, making it unique.

After initially only taking portraits in the studio, the desire arose to carry this cumbersome process onto the streets of the big city, whose scenes, spatial dimensions and perspectives still cast a spell over him. Wet plate photography, however, requires the execution of all process steps from coating the plates to exposure to fixation in just a few minutes at the location of the picture.

That’s why he built a mobile mini-laboratory for his cargo bike and can now take photos freely on wet plates all over the city. In 2020 the project work for “Tin City” began, with the final exhibition in August / September 2020 in the Galerie 1822-Forum.

Niklas Görke lives with his family in Frankfurt a.M.

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