Edmund Nagele F.R.P.S.

When I left a Munich advertising studio for Ireland, I dreamt of cheap whisky, hot geysers and a little adventure. Wrong. Very wrong indeed! The whisky was expensive, the hot springs were in Iceland and the little adventure developed into a big adventure……. The land and it’s people were fascinating right from the beginning and after learning a few words of the English language, tinted with an Irish flavour, mind and soul were cleared of orderly Teutonic perceptions. The wind blew away the acquired photographic rules to let grey skies and green meadows produce stunning pictures. The adventure was in full swing and I never missed the Bavarian studio.

Since then I have travelled to many exotic countries. During 1973, in recognition of my work, I was awarded the honours of a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (F.R.P.S.). In 1982 I started to build up my own Picture Library and for commercial reasons, moved to England. Here I soon discovered the Highland of Scotland which has so much in common with the Emerald Isle. The sunny beaches of exotic tourist destinations did not tempt me, hence it is no surprise that I still have not got around to buying a sensible sunshade for my camera. Instead of a sunshade I placed many other astonishing, yet creative ‘bits’ in front of my lenses in order to manipulate my work within the camera. Deception by photography ?

Then came the pixels: Rather than being satisfied with retouching existing photographs, I went in at the deep end and experimented with many different digital styles. The painted effects, created with the help of PhotoShop and Painter software, give a new meaning to "painting with light". Here, photography drifts into virtual painting and with each controlled brushstroke new ideas are opened up.

Mankind expressed creativity in the Stone Ages with a few colours derived from nature itself. The palette of shades evolved over centuries, today even the smallest of home computers lays claim to "millions of colours". As in photography, it is not the camera that creates the picture but the person behind it - thus the computer technology is simply a medium helping us to express ourselves in ways we could have never envisaged a few years ago. May my selection of images cross barriers of language and culture, offering only inspiration.