It is really amazing what any appropriate distance, be it emotional and physical, can do. Aren’t there times you wished that you had protected yourself from a troubled relationship? Or you perhaps you just wished you had not been so scared and took a certain risk? It would be so helpful sometimes if in our everyday life, we had the chance to see our microcosm and our relationships from a more adequate perspective, not too close up not too far either, and interact with others whilst being neither too involved nor too distant. It would certainly solve a lot of our problems, from a tiny heartbreak to great frustration. Bernhard Lang, a talented German photographer with a versatile career to his name, is obsessed with finding this ideal distance, the perfect point where nature and humans could seem to be living together in a perfect match. His aerial views, almost unreal in their calculated formalism, amaze with the new perspective they cast on this eternal battle, both aesthetic and existential, between the natural environment and the human presence.

Bernhard Lang’s photos are proof that, when viewed from above, we are the weirdest intruders on planet earth! The human figures in his photos seem almost unreal, like colorful playmobils with no sense of their own existence. It is almost funny to see them spend their spare time under the sun or swimming carefree in a river or swimming pool. Under this perspective or indeed microscope, Lang’s work is a reminder that whatever our life and our problems may be, a zoom out picture will always reveal that we are just small creatures, nothing more than a tiny reflection of the universe.

Lang’s stills look like paintings. This is due to the amazing color pallet of his work that intensifies the impression that nature, rather than the photographed, is painted on canvas. The green of the trees and the blue of the deep sea in his photos remind us that the universe we are part of is definitely worth living. Moreover, one cannot but admire Lang’s talent to turn a simple view into a deep sensorial experience. His aerial views are the triumph of mankind in a natural environment that both scares and amazes. Standing somewhere between the earth and the sky, his work is an act of liberation; a colorful celebration of life in its most.

Aerial photographs taken over the south of Bavaria, Germany in 2010 / 2011
Summer locations: Lake of Starnberg, Munich, Isar River, ...
Winter locations: Pfaffenwinkel Area, 
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Area, 
Zugspitze, 
Skiing Worldchampionships GAP 2011, ...