Photographer
Photographer
Born: October 6, 1945; Died: May 24, 2014
Michael Schmidt, who has died of cancer aged 68, was a photographer most famous for documenting his home city of Berlin in stark black and white images before and after the wall came down. The wall itself often featured in his work - looming and grey - but in more recent years he had turned his attention to the food and drink industry, documenting the work of the likes of abattoirs and fish farms.
He was born in east Berlin just after the end of the Second World War, but his family crossed to the west just before the wall went up in 1961. Although Schmidt was interested in photography, he studied painting but ended up training as a policeman at the insistence of his parents.
He began taking pictures of the people and life of west Berlin in the mid-1960s and, although he was largely self-taught, he eventually gave up his job in the police to pursue a career as a photographer. He founded the Workshop for Photography in Berlin in the mid-1970s.
He always preferred to work in black and white and his pictures were published in two striking collections in the 1980s and 90s. Ceasefire, which was published in 1987, showcased his photographs of west Berlin just before the wall came down in 1989 while Unity, which was published seven years later, features pictures of the city in the immediate aftermath of the reunification of Germany. The latter book placed Schmidt's pictures next to images from newspapers, magazines and propaganda issued by the Communists and the Nazis.
His most recent project was Foodstuffs, which explores the modern food industry and took seven years to complete. Just three days before his death, the project won the Prix Pictet, a prize for photography which tackles sustainability and environmental issues.
The French photographer Luc Delahaye, who won last year's Pictet prize and who was one of this year's judges, said of Schmidt's work: "His language is a language of precision and his tool is the most simple one: a small, 35mm camera, and a few rolls of films. His pictures look simple at first glance, and their anti-sentimentality, their refusal of all the tricks of the usual seduction, their concision and their clarity, give them great efficiency. They show what they show but they manage to retain an opacity, a mystery, and they become a support for our imagination."
Schmidt's work had been exhibited all over the world including The Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1996. His work is also currently on display in an exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum until June 14.
He is survived by his wife Karin and a daughter.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article