Wilfried Sohn photographic collection
[graphic].
| Main Creator: | |
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| Summary: | Collection consists of images of Dublin, Meath, Kerry, Aran Islands and other locations. |
| Format: | Photo |
| Language: | English |
| Published / Created: |
[ca. 1980s-1990s].
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| Subjects: | |
| Notes: | Notes provided by Donor and edited by cataloguer. Wilfried Sohn was a teacher in Wuppertal (Ronsdorf), Germany and visited Ireland in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was a keen amateur photographer and member of a local German photography club. He gave slide show presentations to German audiences on Ireland and occasionally sold photographs to be used in magazines and calendars. His interests also included railways and mountain hiking so these feature in the photographs he took. He spoke English well and was interested in Irish music as well as culture and history. He used a Hasselblad wide format camera (60 x 60) several interchangeable lenses, along with an external light meter and mainly Kodachrome (some Fuji) film. He had an exchangeable camera back end but, in Ireland mainly used Kodachrome colour film. He would stand in a location until the light conditions worked for him and then took 2 or 3 pictures with small variations. The films were sent off for development to a professional developer in Dusseldorf Germany and were developed for slide projection. Wilfried would choose the best pictures to mount under glass for slide projection. To be best appreciated they really do need to be projected or enlarged. He did develop and print some pictures to large prints to be hung as pictures on walls. For several years he produced and sold limited edition calendars (runs of some low hundreds), simply called "Ireland" with his pictures on 40 x 30 cm one picture per month calendars. I think the German company my father worked for gave them to customers and suppliers. Wall Calendars were a widely used and appreciated thing before online calendars. I think the format (as well as slide shows) determined the subject matter and layout of the photograph subjects. travelled by boat to the Arran islands several years and toured Connemara, Kerry and Donegal. But many of the photos are from near Drogheda and the east coast as Wilfried would go on day trips, to Howth or Bray to take pictures of trains. Laytown train station and the Nanny viaduct, near where we lived, was also a favourite of his. Sadly Wilfried (unmarried and without children) died suddenly just after retiring from teaching in 2013. He left a large collection of photographs, mostly of German and Swiss railways, which were donated (by a friend and fellow railway enthusiast) to a German railway museum as the featured high quality pictures of many railways that are now closed. In comparison, his Irish collection was much smaller but was important to him and our family and I think give an interesting picture of Ireland from a somewhat external, German social/liberal viewpoint. Physical description: 2216 photographs : in mylar; in phase boxes. dye coupler transparencies ; 60mm Physical description: 8 boxes. Finding Aids: Listing provided by donor and amended by NPA staff available on spreadsheet accessible to NPA staff. more |
| Provenance: | Donated by André Kramer, 23 August 2022. |
| Call Number | View In | Collection |
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NPA SOH |
NPA Reading Room - Appt. only |
Photos |
Reproduction rights owned by the National Library of Ireland.