ENTRY DESCRIPTION
This image, made in January 2017, is part of my long-form documentary Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man about Fritz Dressler (1937-2020), a German landscape and travel photographer and former Professor of Photography who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease during the last years of his life. Fritz was an intense, creative, headstrong man. Walking with him in the midst of the magical lowlands of the Hamme river near his home, his solitary figure with the impressive ushanka spoke of his vulnerability as well as of his resilience.
In my work I am completely committed to the emotional reality of my charismatic protagonist.
AUTHOR
Mirja Maria Thiel, born in Hamburg, Germany in 1971, is a journalistic documentary photographer with a background in literature (1999, Master of Arts in American/English/German literature and linguistics, Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU), Germany).
From 2014 until 2019 Mirja studied "Photojournalism and Documentary Photography" at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover.
Mirja’s photographic work is long-term and deals in-depth with single characters. Her documentary narratives develope around memory and identity, exploring health challenges such as Alzheimer’s disease and ignored issues like sexuality in old age. Mirja lives with her her husband and their three children close to Bremen, Germany.
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