German Photo Book Award 2019
November 15th, 2019
Category “Student Projects”. Winner in Gold. Photo book “Yellow Soul” by Lisa Schneider.
House of Economy, Stuttgart
published on: www.deutscher-fotobuchpreis.de
“Yellow Soul” is a bachelor thesis in communication design at the Hochschule für Kommunikation und Gestaltung in Stuttgart, in the summer semester 2019 with the professors Michaela Köhler and Christiane Nowottny.
Text, design and photography are presented by Lisa Schneider in a high quality that is equivalent to experienced creative people in each of these three areas – a truly extraordinary Bachelor’s thesis.
The reader is taken into a seemingly familiar, everyday situation: the Berlin subway. But Lisa Schneider manages excellently in this book what is just one of the most important topics in professional photography: “The Storytelling”. One leafs through and begins an amazing journey into the underground of the metropolis Berlin – and ends it only on page 398 – captivated by the stories from photographs and texts. The viewer becomes the active companion of the author and photographer through the stories of the book.
The first photo “Come take a ride with me” depicts a young woman in the subway who invites the reader to start into this cosmos with her. The second photo draws the viewer through open subway doors – and so it goes on – the photos tell the exciting stories of social groupings, of humanity, social hotspots and the use of the subway as a means of transportation, a place to earn money, a canvas for graffiti, a workplace and a place of retreat. The reader is guided by a graphic of the imaginary Berlin subway plan, which depicts the chapters of the photo book as stations – a beautiful design idea – consistently in subway yellow, like the entire design. From here on Lisa Schneider has to prove herself with the camera: Double page for double page.
Because her photography in the subway includes several special photographic areas and thus the most diverse challenges to light and perspective: street photography, people, architecture, landscape, still life – and all this under light conditions from tunnel-dark to neon light-bright. And the “Models” are of course not perfect for the camera placed professionals as usual in studio productions: The people in the subway move spontaneously in front of the camera – and the background – the subway – moves with it. Really a challenge to deliver over 398 pages of photos in the same look and light – and on top Lisa Schneider still plays with the alternation of color and black-and-white shots. But she can – have a look at some photos of the different genres here – and consider: here a student thesis is awarded – really remarkable!
Laudation by Jürgen Meister,
Managing Director, BFF Berufsverband Freie
Photographers and Film Designers e.V.
Marlene Kogel’s bachelor thesis “The Accordion Book” was placed on the longlist of the German Photo Book Award 2019.