Before the word… Photography functions as a natural reflection of time. In contrast to the virtual picture, the photograph carries the truth of reality. A passport photograph carries the official claim of a person’s authentic identity. No other portrait medium not even a 3D sculpture would be able to achieve this. This undeniable truth of photography is an inherent characteristic of the medium. The photograph is a coincidence between, space, time and will. Spatial constellations, objects and figures are brought together through the will of the photographer at a particular point in time in order to create the picture. The medium, be it a negative, a print or a digital picture is validated through its point in time. The validity of the photograph is proven by its uniqueness in contrast to the alternative times and perspectives of other pictures; in other words, no two photographs are ever the same. Ourunderstandingofphotographyasadocumentarymedium leaves us in no doubt as to its authenticity. Photography seems to extend the boundaries of reality. The photograph fills the gaps in truth, brings out the reality which wasn’t even accessible to the photographer beforehand. The photograph contains more truth than we can at first anticipate. Therein is a potential conflict; the picture can exceed our expectation of truth. There is a tendency for photographs to be doctored by adding colour, contrast and texture for example, but this leaves our true take on reality rather colorless and flat. There are few magazines with undoctored pictures. Even for us it is necessary to amend the raw material before printing and also any weaknesses in light and color. The particular difficulty is in knowing how much to amend. The standard nowadays for publishing pictures is the use of HDR technique (HighDynamicRange).The high dynamic area produces a picture of high contrast in which for example the shaded area has the same contrast as the illuminated area. Or extremely light intensive surfaces such as cloud diffusion have the same contrast as a dramatic thunder storm. HDR pictures are becoming more and more popular because they awake our interest in the unreal. Our senses accept the limitations of our ability to access the truth and process the reality. It can be compared to the fascination of slow motion or speeded up film; our eyes would never be able to process such images. Our understanding of what photography is doesn’t make us fans of the HDR technique. We sometimes refer to HDR as Highlight Degenerative Reality. Our approach to photography respects the natural boundaries of our perception and the natural laws of light exposure. We also love the dark side of life Turning lathe NICOLAI. Lübbrechtsen, GER