At the end of the 1990s an idea was formed to gather a personal selection of public figures for an unusual photographic portrait project, which conceptually contradicted the already-then-accelerating Zeitgeist. It was realised as part of my project identity “crocodiles are green concepts” from 1998 to 2001.

For this project it was not the face of the person that was to become the object of photography; rather, the person itself, equipped with a single-use camera, was meant to become the author and vanish from the image. The presence of the photographer as a third element and evaluating voyeur was excluded.

A long time before the everyday presence of social media came into being, the photographic results of the VIPs who took part mirror the status quo of the present in a very unique fashion, like a “foreboding”. However, this impression is undermined and broken by the fact that the project’s results were widely held back until today, in the sense of its conceptual, chronologically opposing essence.

Within the timeframe for project realisation, texts were developed by Prof. Dr. Michael Astroh, Prof. Dr. Martin Roman Deppner and Prof. Michael Soltau, which reflect the contributions of images by ten people of public interest in regard to the conceptual origin of my project.

A contemporary document was developed, which now, with the existing temporal distance, will be finalized as a book project and exhibition.