Ralf Tooten
"NACHT WELLEN"
Photographs of Waves at Night

Exhibition: 20 August – 2 October, 2016

"Nacht Wellen" (Waves at Night) is an ongoing photographic project by photographer Ralf Tooten that explores the enigmatic qualities of the ocean seas through low light photography. Using the camera to reveal the nothingness that is hidden from the human eye, Tooten spent countless nights on the beaches of Japan, Bali, Thailand, Malaysia and the Maldives to create this work. Ralf Tooten became interested in low light photography following his Bangkok Noir project (2007-2009), which presented the city and its characters at night; contrasting glowing tropical scenes with concrete darkness. For Waves at Night, Tooten’s visual narrative moves into abstract territory as he tells of moonless nights spent on beaches that could have been anywhere in the world, staring into near impenetrable darkness and broken only by rare wave crests glittering in the distance. To Tooten these moments represent an overwhelming triumph of nature, and one that causes us to reflect on our primal fear of the dark as we contemplate what lies beneath the black water.

Ralf Tooten was born in Homberg in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He began his career as a stills photographer on the sets of Germany’s modern cinema classics such as "The Tin Drum" and "Marianne and Juliane" (Margarethe von Trotta’s Golden Lion Award winning film) and has since focused on architecture, portrait and landscape photography. For his highly acclaimed "Augen der Weisheit" (Eyes of Wisdom) project, Tooten travelled for six years to portray the inner realms of spiritual practitioners and leaders around the world. In 2003, this project also earned him the prestigious Hasselblad Masters Award in Gothenburg, Sweden.