Protest movement

Uprisings, revolutions, demonstrations - people have been joining together to fight for their cause for centuries. Even today, the news reports almost daily on various protest movements, whether regional like in Hong Kong or international like Black Lives Matter and Fridays for Future. Born in the Ruhr area and raised in the Rhineland, photographer Oliver Feldhaus focuses on the protests in his adopted home of Berlin and tells us about his passion.

I wouldn't call myself a movement photographer. But the photos of a protest were indeed the beginning for me, and the subject has kept me busy ever since. In 2013, I came to photography as a participant observer of the struggle of refugees for their rights. Since then, I have been accompanying social movements in particular as a photographer. Therefore, I quickly found my photographic home at the traditional Kreuzberg Umbruch Bildarchiv. The Umbruch Bildarchiv was founded in 1988 and now houses a fascinating contemporary historical treasure trove of more than 100,000 photos on social, cultural and political hotspots. I do not claim to be an objective, neutral observer. I am a political person who deals with society and the structures that shape it. What and how I photograph always has to do with me. I actually approach the work very subjectively and personally. Curiosity, anger, joy or solidarity are definitely driving forces for why I want to photograph something. And protests often give expression to these feelings, both negative and good.

"Curiosity, anger, joy or solidarity are definitely driving forces for why I want to photograph something."

I want to show with my pictures what I have seen and how I have seen, experienced and felt it. Thereby I am not objective in the sense of neutrality, but I create transparency, personal testimony about what happened.

Thus, a feeling of indignation was actually the triggering moment that brought me to take photographs in the first place. In 2013, when refugees went on hunger strike in front of the Brandenburg Gate to draw attention to their inhumane situation in the camps, I experienced several times how they were racist and brutally harassed by police officers in moments they thought they were unobserved. I photographed this at the time with a simple small compact camera. When I later showed the photos to the refugees, supporters, journalists and politicians, I quickly realized the immense power of images and what they can achieve. I learned that images have their own meaning and function for the protest. The refugees felt seen and no longer alone in their distress, the supporters used them for their solidarity work, journalists informed the public about the events, and in politics the action was finally taken note of. Since then, I have continued with it.

I take a less technical and conceptual approach to my photography. These are deficits that I am working on. But here, too, I can hardly get out of my skin. My stylistic devices are spontaneity and empathy. I work fast and at the same time technically unclean. I get into a situation because it interests me and touches me in some way. I observe what happens. In the best case, I let myself be carried away and simply wait for the images that come, for the moment to press the shutter. I like to be in the middle of an event, up close and personal. Again, there's something very subjective and emotional about being a participant observer. Being right in the middle and looking on from the outside sounds paradoxical at first. But I experience it almost physically when I let myself drift along as an element of a moment in order to look at the whole event from above or from the outside at the same time.

When I started photographing social and protest movements, I made long series. But I soon realized that this way of documenting bored me. The meticulous listing of banners, posters, actors is not my thing. Perhaps out of convenience, since then I have tried to describe the impression that an action, a protest, a movement has left on me with just a few pictures. I go home happy in the evening when I have succeeded in taking a picture in which the event is completely reproduced from my point of view. This moment can be in a person's facial expression or in a casual moment on the edge of a commotion. This unpredictability and potentially constant possibility of the right moment is for me the exciting and fascinating of photography.

"I learned that images have their own meaning and function for protest."

And to be honest, in the end the most beautiful pictures are often the ones that have nothing to do with the original event. They're the ones I took by chance on the sidelines and on the way home after work. The most promising stylistic device for good photos for me is therefore simply: always stay in motion, always have a camera hanging around my shoulder, so that I can always press the shutter button when the photo comes along and the moment says hello. I am also happy about the fact that many of my pictures develop a kind of life of their own. Then when, beyond publication in newspapers, magazines, social media, they find their way back into society, into political and social movements via posters, books, art exhibitions, theaters, museums or educational materials.

The work has come to a good end when I have put the protest into the picture, the protest has been continued with pictures, and finally it is the pictures themselves that protest again.

More info and more works of the artist:

Oliver Feldhaus
Instagram: @feldhausfeldhaus
Flickr: @petshoppetshop
Twitter: @petmobbb
Facebook: @petshop.petshop