A Photo Story: The Missing Script

Stories

Feb 27

"Sometimes I'm at a loss for words," says German photographer Bernhard Brause. It is a striking admission for a storyteller, but when viewing his latest series, the silence feels intentional. Through 13 evocative frames, Brause explores a world of "light and dark, of searching and hiding, of pausing and running away." It is a story, he says, told without a script.

A Sanctuary for Shadows

The setting for this visual narrative is the Peenemünde power station on the island of Usedom. A relic of the 1940s and the largest industrial monument in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the coal-fired station offered Brause the perfect stage. "I like old buildings, mysterious rooms, and dark corridors where light has its own laws," he explains.

Inside, the air was bitter, colder than the German December outside giving him only a thirty minute window to capture the series before the freezing temperatures became unbearable. The result is a palpable sense of urgency and isolation, where the viewer is invited to "lose yourself in the dark world of old machines."

Time Hidden in Monochrome

For Brause, black and white is more than an aesthetic choice; it is a tool for temporal camouflage. By stripping away color, he removes the markers of the modern world.

"Black and white fits very well in this old building because the viewer cannot determine exactly whether the photos were taken yesterday or 50 years ago," Brause notes. "Time can be hidden very well in black and white photos." This ambiguity allows the architecture and the subject to exist in a vacuum, focusing the eye on the "space and its very being."

The Muse and the Motion

At the center of this industrial labyrinth is Brigitte, Brause’s partner and constant collaborator. Far from being a static model, Brigitte acts as the emotional anchor for the series.

"Brigitte has a unique talent for immersing herself in each situation, feeling it, and then expressing her emotions," Brause says. Together, they traveled to the Baltic Sea to find a location that mirrored the feeling of "going round and round in circles without ever finding a way out." In her movements, we see the struggle between the individual and the vast, cold machinery of history.

You can check out Bernhard’s incredible work at bernhardbrause.de and on foto @bernhardbrause.