Stephan Tobias | Paradise Lost 1
photo, 45 x 60 cm, 2021/2022

As we know the world around us is a construction.

Lost places are having their fair share of visual exploitations. An unfinished factory building outside Berlin is one of my favourite of such places, as it keeps rotting away so gracefully. Every few years I return for another photoshooting.

We tend to believe that there was a moment when mankind lived in harmony with the world. The “paradise lost” series expresses my scepticism against that concept.

Jaap de Jonge comes to Berlin almost every year for inspiration and photoshootings. In 2021 we went to my lost place together, to do what we always do: him behind and me in front of the camera.

Photography and digital photo-alterations are my way of expressing my gratitude to be able to live on this beautiful blue planet for a while.

For a short moment we can be proud and clever and beautiful beings. But by tomorry this calendar leaf will be a case for the dustbin.