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Roswitha Hecke (born 1944 in Hamburg) is a German photographer and photojournalist. With content ranging from faces to places, her photographic projects explore the unfamiliar and re-examine the familiar.
Hecke wanted to become a photographer from the time she was a teenager. The daughter of a teacher, she had never before held a camera in her hands, but one morning, she woke up one knowing that she needed to take photos. After a three-year apprenticeship as a photographer, Hecke became acquainted with the theatrical director Peter Zadek. During the seven years of their relationship, she photographed Zadek’s theatre productions exclusively. This period was followed by shots of many other stage works and films, including productions by Werner Schroeter, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and, in Paris, of Éric Rohmer.
Hecke lived with the German author and poet Wolfgang Wondratscheck and travelled with him around the United States in the 1970s. They published a book together entitled People, Places, Fists. Hecke has portrayed many artists, actors and musicians, including Omar Sharif, Heinz Bennent, Ingrid Caven and Andrés Segovia.
Hecke regards herself as a modern nomad. She has travelled the world: France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, India, Mexico, Peru, USA, Spain, and Switzerland. In Morocco, she lived in a tent for three years . In 2002, she moved to St. Petersburg, where she taught the Masterclass of Photography at the Art Academy.
At present, Hecke lives in Hamburg. She has two sons, Said and Ivan.
"She never ridicules her models, but she does not glorify them either. Her eye never stops enquiring and thus her photos are honest, sometimes humorous and always unique." (Joachim Sartorius, superintendent of the Berliner Festspiele)
Hecke was first recognised for her black-and-white photography of theatrical scenes and portraits. In the beginning of the 1970s, she switched to photojournalism and colour photography. Her unstaged photographs explore strange and yet often simple worlds and situations. She is a precise, unprejudiced and sensitive observer. Some of her photo-cycles deal with people living on the edge of society: transvestites, homeless people and prostitutes. Her photos are respectful and do not rob her subjects of their dignity. Another one of her favorite topics is the fascination with the human male as such and all the expressions of machismo. Her work was published by numerous renowned German magazines like Stern , Vogue , Twen , Playboy , Theater heute , Die Zeit , Spiegel , and others.
Her work LoveLife, about the Zurich prostitute Irene, won the 1979 Kodak Prize as best photobook. In 1982, it was awarded the prize as Most beautiful book by the German foundation Stiftung Buchkunst and was published in Norway, the United States and Japan.
Bernhard "Bernd" Becher, and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser, were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures, often organised in grids. As the founders of what has come to be known as the 'Becher school' or the Düsseldorf School of Photography, they influenced generations of documentary photographers and artists in Germany and abroad. They were awarded the Erasmus Prize and the Hasselblad Award.
Herbert List was a German photographer, who worked for magazines, including Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Life, and was associated with Magnum Photos. His austere, classically posed black-and-white compositions, particularly his homoerotic male nudes, taken in Italy and Greece being influential in modern photography and contemporary fashion photography.
Gisèle Freund was a German-born French photographer and photojournalist, famous for her documentary photography and portraits of writers and artists. Her best-known book, Photographie et société (1974), is a expanded edition of her seminal 1936 dissertation. It was the first sociohistorical study on photography as a democratic medium of self-representation in the age of technological reproduction. With this first doctoral thesis on photography at the Sorbonne, she was one of the first women habilitated there.
Ireen Sheer is a German-English singer. She had her first major hit in 1970 with Hey Pleasure Man. She had a top five hit on the German singles chart with "Goodbye Mama" in 1973. She went on to finish fourth at the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 representing Luxembourg, sixth at the Eurovision Song Contest 1978 representing Germany, and thirteenth at the Eurovision Song Contest 1985 representing Luxembourg again.
Günter Kunert was a German writer. Based in East Berlin, he published poetry from 1947, supported by Bertold Brecht. After he had signed a petition against the deprivation of the citizenship of Wolf Biermann in 1976, he lost his SED membership, and moved to the West two years later. He is regarded as a versatile German writer who wrote short stories, essays, autobiographical works, film scripts and novels. He received international honorary doctorates and awards.
Hildegard Zadek was a German operatic soprano. She was Kammersängerin at the Vienna State Opera and performed internationally.
Luise Rinser was a German writer, best known for her novels and short stories.
Erol Sander is a Turkish-German actor.
Paola del Medico Felix is a Swiss singer.
Rosalie Helga Lina Zech, known as Rosel Zech, was a German theater and film actress, she is most well known for her works associated with the "Autorenkino" movement, which began in the 1970s.
Amelie Fried is a German writer and television presenter. Her father, Kurt Fried, is the creator-publisher of Schwäbische Donauzeitung, nowadays a part of Südwest Presse. She studied journalism and film at university. She has worked extensively in television and has published numerous books. Her 2008 book Schuhhaus Pallas. Wie meine Familie sich gegen die Nazis wehrte deals with her family's persecution in Nazi Germany. The book received significant media attention and has been the subject of much debate.
Volker Hinz was a German photographer. Early in his career he became known for his political reportage and travel stories; now his portraits of artists, authors, fashion designers, sports men and politicians are better known.
Gerhard Zwerenz was a German writer and politician. From 1994 until 1998 he was a member of the Bundestag for the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
Günther "Jim" Rakete is a German photographer, photojournalist, filmmaker, writer and producer based in Berlin.
Annett Renneberg (born 16 March 1978 in Rudolstadt) is a German actress and singer.
Bele Bachem was a German graphic artist, book illustrator, stage designer and writer. In 1997, Bachem was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Ute Mahler is a German photographer. In 1990 she and her husband Werner Mahler were two of the seven co-founders of the "Ostkreuz" photography agency. Between 2000 and 2015, she was a professor of photography at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.
Laurenz Berges is a German photographer. He is associated with the Düsseldorf School of Photography.
Stefan Moses was a German photographer living in Munich.
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