Artistic Position
My goal is to capture the magnificience of high alpine landscapes. As a long-time experienced alpinist and climber, I’m lucky to witness all the beauty of high alpine landscapes, right at the heart of them. Since the beginning of my alpine life I felt the strong need to express what I’m allowed to experience up there. Supported by my early photographic background, I chose the art of photography as the medium of my expression, almost at the same time as I started my alpine life. This was back in 1994.
There were and are many great photographers, but none of the masters inspires me like Galen Rowell does. He lived the perfect synthesis of being a great photographer and – at the same time – celebrating his love to mountain landscapes simply by “being there”. Not a single photograph of Galen is just documentary, he expressed himself in each and every image he created. This great master of alpine photography is an infinite source of inspiration and creativity for me.
Photography is the perfect medium for capturing my impressions of high alpine landscapes. By creating photos, I can control whether I want to convey my feelings I had at a certain spot or if I prefer to show climbers and mountaineers in a wild surrounding which is unfamiliar to the majority my audience. Regardless of the subject, photography gives me anything I need to deliver personal impressions like I have experienced them.
Artistic Approach / Technique
Fine art photography is much more than just documenting a subject. Fine art photography is personal expression. None of my photographs comes straight off the camera. My creative process consists of two main steps: Doing it right in the field and exert full control in post processing.
In the field, I strive to compose the image perfectly, anticipate the best lighting and select the most perfect viewing angles. This often means to stop my climbing partner from continuing climbing, to speed up to catch the best light at the right location and to enter sometimes dangerous terrain off the route.
Post-processing gives me full control over refining the images taken by the camera to personal photographic work. The absolute guideline is the impression I had when I was creating the composition. In all of my images you can witness exactly what I have seen as I’ve been there.
Fine art photography is excellence, technically and artistically speaking. This means that I use the best cameras and lenses available for my personal job in the field. It means also to apply all my artistic skills anytime and to constantly pursue the goal of personal skill improvement.
Public Appearance
In the early days of my photographic development, beginning in 1994, my public appearance took place in private assignments, small-audience image presentations and occasional image sales. Later on, I focused on the distribution of my photographic work via the website wilfriedhaferland.com. In 2011 I started my involvement in the Google+ photography community, resulting in over 27’000 followers, regular participations in online-contests and, most important, in very interesting friendships with other photographers in my homecountry and abroad.
My website was relaunched as haferlandphotography.com in the beginning of 2013. In January 2013, I exhibited a hand-picked selection of photographs at the photo13, the largest photographic show of Switzerland. Later on I focused on my work for alpineSTOCK.com, a macro stock agency specialized in images of alpine regions, which I founded in 2011. In the end of 2017, haferlandphotography.com was relaunched again.
About The Artist
Wilfried Haferland is a Swiss-based photographer. He started his photographic and alpine career back in 1994. For more than 10 years he worked mainly with Fuji Velvia chrome film. In 2004, he decided to take full advantage of digital photography. His alpine activities cover summer and winter climbing of +4’000m peaks, general alpine climbing and back-country ski-touring. Wilfried Haferland is also founder and managing director of alpineSTOCK.com, a macro stock agency specialized in images of alpine regions.
Provider Reference
Wilfried Haferland
Haferland Photography
Toblerstrasse 76a
CH-8044 Zürich
Switzerland