Ulrich Raschke
Germany
Born in 1962 and based in Berlin, he is a photographer and journalist with a background in German language and literature and sociology, which he studied in Kiel and Hamburg. Over the years, he has worked in forests, factories, museums, and publishing houses. His relationship with photography began with his first camera in 1971, followed by his first SLR camera in 1979, his first digital camera in 2000, and his first iPhone in 2009. Since 2009, he has participated in solo and group exhibitions dedicated to abstract photography.
Project
This ongoing project explores abstract photography through materials found along abandoned railway tracks. Rubber plates, concrete sleepers, rusted iron, and worn surfaces become traces of movement, pressure, friction, and time, bearing the invisible weight of billions of tons and hundreds of thousands of journeys while remaining physically fixed in place.
The work approaches experimental photography as a search for alternative ways of seeing. Rather than depending on complex equipment, the process is guided primarily by observation, intuition, and the balance between awareness and instinct. The images emerge from an encounter between exploration and creation, focusing on surfaces shaped by both human intervention and natural transformation.
Working digitally with an iPhone and DSLR camera, the photographs are developed using processes that remain closely connected to traditional darkroom techniques, including cropping, mirroring, and the inversion of light and colour. Through these transformations, functional and overlooked materials are detached from their original context and become abstract compositions, revealing layers of change, unintended effects, and the visual traces of human activity over time.










