blog.oliverklinkphotography.comOliver Klink Photography

Cultures In Transition Exhibits Publication Acquire Portfolio Exhibits About Contact eNewsletter Inquiries Select Page The Spider Awards: Three Awards (3rd Place, Two Honorable Mentions) Nov 1, 2020 | Fine Art , news | 0 Comments The Black and White Spider Awards is the contest judged by the most respected names in photography. I am proud of announcing that three of my images were selected for awards in the 15th Annual award. Chained but Bonded was photographed in Thailand (February 2020). This is a powerful image for its content and execution. You can read more about the on-going project about elephants at https://blog.oliverklinkphotography.com/Views-of-Elephants I received two honorable mentions in the Silhouette and Portraiture categories. Get Milk” is part of a 15 year project that lead to the publication of the award winning book, Cultures in Transition . The book received 9 awards for best photography book of 2019! More info . Congratulations to all the winning photographers. It is a privilege to be part of such a group of inspiring Black and White photographers! Staying Creative during Covid 19 Aug 1, 2020 | news | 0 Comments https://roblyimages.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/9176/pdf/2090205.pdf Photographer Pledge Support May 31, 2020 | news | 0 Comments https://roblyimages.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/9176/pdf/2060774.pdf Ninth Award: Cultures in Transition is honored at the IBPA Award (Benjamin Franklin). May 8, 2020 | news | 0 Comments May 7, 2020 – Press Release What an exciting news: Cultures in Transition book receives its NINTH Award for best photography book of 2019!!! From Geir & Kate Jordahl – True North Edition Publisher. Intimate relationships, a shared unified vision and high standards from the entire creative team made Cultures in Transition a labor of love and dedication. The goal to create a product to be experienced fully with all the senses – a book that looks beautiful, feels sensual and smells good using tactile cloth and paper, dimensional binding, images that engage the emotions and text that stimulates the mind – all this is possible when investments are shared toward a common goal – a book that changes lives. Our press in Italy Longo AG was on board to print a flagship” Photobook. We lived on press all week, the Longo crew worked in hand with artist, publisher and designer. Spoken language limitations were overcome by the universal voice of image and art! The same was true at Legatoria bindery where the owner, Alexandro and our representative Giuseppe, discussed in Italian for what seemed to be an eternity, the feasibility of our vision’s successful execution. In the end, again, the intimate shared investment in the project and belief in its message made the seemingly impossible succeed! Words emerged in English and Italian: mysterious, long lasting, memorable, BELLISSIMO! Only Indie publishing can create such a project! The world needs Spirit, Heart and Soul now more than ever and working with the teams from True North Editions, Longo AG and Legatoria made this work what it is! Award Ceremony Acceptance Speech! Purchase the book at https://www.culturesintransition.com/OrderForm Black and White Magazine Cover Story (March 2020) Apr 16, 2020 | news | 2 Comments Black and White Magazine can be purchased at https://www.bandwmag.com THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT Oliver Klink’s exploration of ancient cultures in Asia captures the eternal grace that endures against the relentless sweep of modernity. Oliver Klink would never forget the proverb his father-in-law told him during his first trip to China: When you cross the river, you need to feel the pebble under your feet.” Klink had married a first-generation Chinese-American woman, and he had traveled with her and her parents back to their home country. It was the first time Klink’s father-in-law had returned to China since they had left in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution. The older manhardly recognizes the new China, its densely populated urban expanse clogged with skyscrapers and cars, air thick with pollutants, masses of people walking with heads bowed to smartphone screens. My father-in-law thought that China grew way too fast,” says Klink. He told me I would have to travel further beyond the cities to see the real China.” He would take that advice. Over the next two decades, Klink would carry his digital camera and penetrate deeper into Western China and beyond. He made excursions into remote regions of Bhutan, Myanmar, India, and Mongolia, emerging with a stunning body of work organized in a collection called Cultures in Transition . This almost generic title doesn’t prepare the viewer for Klink’s transcendent achievement, the mastery of shadow and framing. The intimacy of these images, many of them capturing Buddhists in somber ritual and villagers toiling with rustic tools in forbidden landscapes, transport the viewer into a forgotten world. But it never feels like these photos beckon to us from the past. They are of our own time but still separate. Both the families engaged in rote chores and the monks in mindful reflection are steeped in centuries-old, inviolable traditions that they carry out with ritualistic determination, as the developing world rages around them in chaos and disarray. Even as we recognize the alienness of these environments, we are alive to the shared humanity they represent. We connect with these people in recognition that something very precious may soon be lost forever. What Klink gives us with his work is not a depiction of a lost tribe out of time or a backwards community. He rejects the cliché of the noble peasant. He subtitles his collection, Spirit, Heart, Soul,” and these concepts resonate in the penetrating gaze of the eagle huntress, the beatific smile of children at play, the bathing rays of sunlight cascading through an ancient temple. These photos capture moments of simple labors, but they carry the vibrant thrum of the uncanny. Klink refers to it as the fluidity of life,” where people are animated by their spiritual guiding light”—phrases that come as close to anything else in describing the unnamable. A Rigorous Mind Cultures in Transition has received wide acclaim. It’s been named Best Photography Book” by eight different organizations and media properties. Klink’s work has been published in National Geographic , Daily Mail , Popular Photography , among many others, including this publication. In 2016 and 2018, he received the Spotlight Award by Black and White Magazine . Reviewers often note Klink’s ability to reach beyond the gaze of the outsider, to demythologize these rural Asian regions to create immersive experiences that reveal the permeable borders between old traditions and modernity. Writing in Photolucida , Drazenka Jalsic Ernecic says of Cultures in Transition : With the sustained high level of anthropological and historical skill and universality of his artistic concept, Klink reaches a spiritual connection with the Chinese people and their customs. Clear vintage composition and the purity of Klink’s new modernism underline the common need for humanity and fragility of human existence.” How Klink became the artist responsible for this work is another mystery that defies easy explanation. Born in Switzerland, he earned degrees in three different countries, earning a masters in physics before traveling to the U.S., where he acquired an MBA while landing a job at tech giant Cisco. He also pursued a lifetime goal of learning photography. I took classes at Foothill College but never got a degree,” says Klink. I’m mostly self-taught,” Many creatives harness a gnawing anxiety, an impatience with the world as it is. Not Klink. As you would expect of a physicist, he brings a methodical rigor to his craft, combining tenacity with artistry. Geir Jordahl, director of the PhotoCentral Gallery in Hayward, Calif., has been friends with Klink for more than 15 years, launched the traveling exhibit of Cultures in Transition and...