photographs and cycles | bernd arnold photography

photography about an arcbishop in his car. Das Kölner Heil

rituals of election campaigns, photographic portraiture of chancellor Helmut Kohl

Cycle

Power and Ritual

For more than 20 years Bernd Arnold has been exploring the demonstration of power and rituals at public events.

He started his research about behavioural attitudes in different contexts of society with a documentation of catholic ceremonies in Cologne (compiled in the book "Das Kölner Heil"). Following topics were the politicians´ strategies of a medium-effective self-production during the German election campaign update (compiled in the book "Wahl Kampf Ritual") and the world economic summits. Further on he examined the defining rituals of demimonde and nightlife as well as the production of television sceneries bringing up the question: Is our world a telly?

Photograph and portraiture of German chancellor Angela Merkel

Photo Essay of studios and television - RTL News with Peter Klöppel and Ulrike von der Gröben

Economic Summits in Brussel - Photographer and photojournalist rests

Cycle

Black East Wild West

Dark mass, bizarre situations, shadowy portraits and questionable details vary between the real and the fictional. In Western Europe the interfaces (entrance/exit) between the secular and the sacral were in former centuries the portals of the cathedrals. Nowadays, the interface are more in shopping streets and mass events where human fates are in search of salvation. The growing globalization of the last decades promises more independency and individualism. But is this really true? Are the dependency and synchronization of each other are really less than before?

The Zone - shopping streets | The Portal - the interface between the secular and the sacral | Black East - scenes of decay | Mimesis - a deceptive game

Black East - Scenes of decay in East Germany - Stralsund

Black East - Street Scene Streetphotography

photographs about the West Portals of the Cologne cathedral - entrance with hairdressing woman

Mimesis - Cologne Carnival and Metro station - Photoessay

photography about the West Portals of Cologne cathedral

two men walked in to the Cologne cathedral at the West Portals - Photography and Portfolio

series

Insights and Incidents

Cologne cathedral building lodge stained glass designer with a feather

Old Socialist during the Election Campaign

A ordinary day in Germany with Oskar Lafontaine

Benedikt Taschen Portrait of the publisher

Artist Stephen Prina during Kunstfilmbiennale in Cologne

Portraiture and Series

Portfolio and Overview

portrait of Frank Wingold with jazz guitar

romantic rhine river romantic in Boppard and an old man smoking a cigarette

Cycle

Light Places Dark Cities

Digitalis

In the DIGITALIS cycle, the play with reality and the image of a memory casually marks the transition from analog to digital photography.
In various series since 1985, the fragments of authenticity within photography are slowly and inexorably dissolved with technical developments.

Morguemorph Digitalis - digital illustration

Maiwald Digitalis - digital illustration

Dog and Moon an alternate streetphotography