Member Spotlight with Rachel Wolfe: Humanism - That’s What LHSA Means to Me
My membership with LHSA – The International Leica Society has encouraged me to view my work with photography in a historical context and consider the value of image making in the time of mass information and rapid digitization as a means to connect with a humanist meaning and responsibility. I came to photography after studying interior design and receiving a Bachelor’s in Advertising. My relationship with photography was deeply altered through studies undertaken in my Master’s in Fine Art, as I dove into theoretical underpinnings of the ideas and motives that developed imaging technology, commodity exchange, and complexity in culture we have today.
My experiences outside the U.S.A. in studying social psychology in Japan and living in Norway for several years were able to find roots and meaning in recommitting to photography through the gift of a Leica camera and affirming my commitment to my personal values which align with the values of LHSA. Rapid change is considered a given, and it’s through meaningful contemplation, valuing history and reason, and to gå sakte, or go slow, means to remain in alignment and present with a flow of living that is human and humane. Humanism. That’s what LHSA means to me.
Heavy Water: The story of the subversion that kept Hitler from developing atomic technology.
The Vemork Kraftverk Stasjon in Rjukan, Norway, holds one of history’s quiet victories. The kind of courage and integrity the story of the Heavy Water War is often absent from the World War II texts and contains insight valuable to understanding the Nordic culture, and resilience that can endure longstanding stress in critical situations. Heavy Water was used in developing Nuclear technology and was believed to be necessary for the development of the A-bomb. The Nordic people thwarted the occupation of Hitler’s attempts to make the technology, by slowly sabotaging the work. Their lives at stake, the people persevered on their mission to keep Norway and Europe free from Hitler owning the nuclear bomb technology. The photographs in this series represent the feeling of the place and visualize a psychological sense of the memory of this history embedded in the valley that receives little-to-no sunlight during the Winter months.
Click images to enlarge.
Uprooted Tree in Nordic Forest
Fjord Waters
Rjukan Valley in Telemark