changes – hoepfner photo competition 2025

"Change" is an umbrella term that can encompass a wide variety of changes in people's lives. A radical change, new circumstances in the environment or in life, something new and unfamiliar to which one should or even must adapt. Sometimes this happens quickly and effortlessly, but equally, this transition to something else may only succeed after a period of hesitation or refusal – until one adapts, allows oneself to be persuaded, or realizes that one's old attitudes, previous knowledge, and experiences are no longer getting one anywhere and are losing touch.

What does that mean? Something is changing, is underway, and will require us to adopt new behaviors, and we don't yet know exactly what that will look like.

In recent years, and especially in the past year 2024, many people have experienced very strong and diverse "changes," upheavals, transformations, and escalations in the world, in politics, and in everyday life. Something is in the air, something is on the way; clouds are looming on the horizon. A time of anxious waiting until the new clearly reveals itself and manifests itself so that we can react. Is it something good, something positive – or will it pose a threat to us, does it portend a shift to new living conditions?

Climate change, wars, political instability, the loss of friends or close relatives, currency devaluation, career reorientation, illness, a new phase of life with an "open ending" – many areas of our lives are currently shifting and changing, increasingly and simultaneously – and fears, uncertainties, and mistakes are to be expected. On the other hand, of course, new knowledge is also emerging; young people are experiencing the success of their ideas or the realization of long-held dreams; we are experiencing confirmation of courageous attempts in our daily lives. It is becoming increasingly important to maintain a positive and forward-looking attitude to life and to enjoy life!

The theme of "changes" offers a broad scope for a photographic representation of the Hoepfner Foundation's new 2025 photo competition.

The painter Richard Oelze, one of the leading artists of the "New Objectivity" movement, created his famous painting "Expectation" in 1935/36. It depicts a crowd dressed in winter clothing—with their backs to the viewer—looking down from a slope into a vast plain, waiting. A diffuse landscape bathed in a charged, stormy light. Something hangs in the air, clouds gather on the horizon. This is perhaps how one might feel in light of the great unrest in the world. Something is about to change; we are not entirely optimistic about what these "changes" will mean for us and our usual lives.

Let's stay optimistic and creative! Good luck and success to all participants in their photographic implementation of this theme!