Ralph Gräf

In fall 2006, my scientific career as a cell biologist brought me from Munich to Potsdam near Berlin. Photography has escorted me through my whole adulthood. Yet, it was my move to Potsdam that triggered a more intensive involvement with photography, since here I found friends in the local photo club who gave me a great creative environment to spend a huge part of my spare time for my creative talents. It is my medium to act out those of my creative talents that I have to neglect at my daily work. Together with ten of my friends I am organizing the "Photogallery Potsdam" (http://fotogalerie-potsdam.de), a successful gallery project to promote contemporary artistic photography. With my photos I want to stimulate the imagination of the viewer and to tell a story that emotionally touches him, since sensing emotions is the prerequisite to keep pictures sticking in the viewer's mind. I prefer available light and clearly composed pictures with a discreetly arranged motive. I like working with a series concept in mind that makes the photos more suitable for exhibitions and photo books. It is difficult to state names of other artists, who have inspired me, since there are many. You may get inspirations by any picture you are watching. I try not not copy somebodies style but to find and create an own one. Since 2010, I presented my photographic projects in fourteen well-acclaimed exhibitions in Berlin, Potsdam, Munich, Frankfurt/M., Neubrandenburg, Milano and Gorzów Wielkopolski. At the 4th "Kunstallee Potsdam" (an arts fair) in 2011, I won the Arts Prize for my series "The Traveller" in an election of the approximately 4000 visitors. Several photos won prizes or were shortlisted in national and international photo contests, first of all the Sony World Photography Award, where I won the travel category and the Germany National Award in 2017. All my projects are displayed on my website: https://graef-photography.de