illustris

I obtained my Ph.D. in 1987 in organic chemistry. During a three decades lasting industrial research period my focus shifted to colloidal systems with the emphasis on the self-assembly of anisotropic nano-sized objects in aqueous phase. From 2020 to 2023 I was granted the privilege to pass on my modest scientific insights and professional experience to future scientists as research fellow at Paderborn University. Scientific publications are listed in my ORCID record. Some unpublished oddities and esthetic footage are on my site sequitur.

Since 1975 I've adopted photography as an accompanying part of my private and professional life. No wonder that yields cumulated in times when I was on the move, in particular to African and Asian civilizations. Hopefully, the sometimes mesmerizing "exotic" didn't get stuck in the "tourist gaze" as John Ury and John Larsen entitled the "cultural imperialism", the photographing of the world through "ethnographic filters". The contents of this site covers my digital period which started in 2005 with a 4 Mpx sensor.

My more or less apolitical spirit was sensitized by German politics in 2020. With the motto "follow THE science" fundamental rights were restricted on the basis of questionable facts, dissenting opinions were declared conspiracy theories, and critics were intimidated and deprived of their existential foundations. A similar situation is the focus on CO2 emissions in the context of climate using the same slogan "follow THE science".
This spurred thoughts to extend illustris which eventually was realized on the occasion of several events taking place in October 2025: hysterical reactions in the German public to statements by the German Chancellor about the effects of migration, the inappropriate search of a critic's house, an activistic call of scientists on climate neutrality and the conquest of the city of El Fasher in Sudan by the RSF.
To the extent that these topics gained space, artificial intelligence created previously unimaginable possibilities for further flooding the world with images. Photographing … why?