HAIKU

NIKOLAUS GUFLER

// Nikolaus is from Alto Adige/South Tyrol in Italy. Having begun photography in the analogue days, he took a break until the 2000s when he started over, with an interest in landscape photography that gradually expanded into other spheres. The photo art project he shared is based on Far Eastern philosophical concepts, but has ingredients from very close to home.

“I started photography in the eighties, at that time still analog. After a long break, I began again in 2008. I was fascinated at the beginning with striking landscape photography. Gradually I began to design my pictures and the artistic and experimental awakened my curiosity. Especially the Far East, Zen, Wabi Sabi, Haiku appeals to me very much. There I find my inspiration and stimulation for my images,” Nikolaus told us.

Currently a student at the Prager Fotoschule in Linz, Nikolaus is expanding and sharpening his way of seeing through the camera.

I SIT BETWEEN
YOUR PICTURES AND SEE
YOU PAINT IN RED
WHAT IN MY HEART
BURNS
AND IN BLUE
WHEN MY SOUL GOES FOR A WALK
THE YELLOW
PROMISES YOU A LAUGH
FROM MY SUN
BUT MY WORD
CAN’T
GRASP YOUR PICTURES
Gertrud Hager

What draws you to the arts?

“Art is adventure in the head. When experiencing and looking at art, an unlimited wealth of imagination and inspiration arises in me.”

What do you like best about photo art such as the images you have shared with us?

“Expressing feelings and sensations in pictures.”

For this series, Nikolaus used a haiku by Kobayashi Issa and translated it into images:

Just this morning

quietly and quite secretly

the first leaf fell off.
Kobayashi Issa

Kobayashi Issa was born in 1763 in Kashiwabara, Japan. He is revered in Japan and internationally as one of the greatest traditional haiku poets. Dietrich Krusche, a German writer and professor of intercultural hermeneutics as well as translator of haikus, lists principles that usually apply to traditional haiku: A haiku is concrete. The subject of the haiku is a natural object outside of human nature. A unique situation or event is depicted. This situation or event is depicted as present. In the haiku there is a reference to the seasons.

When Nikolas engages in haiku photography, he has a particular process he follows: “I read the text, take my time and let the haiku affect me. Then I start to photograph, on something that is close to me. I use a macro lens and set the shortest focusing distance manually, sometimes with extension rings to get even closer to the subject. Then I approach the object that inspired me through the haiku and photograph it with open aperture without looking through the viewfinder and without looking through the live viewer image, just blindly, only with my built up feeling. Thereby the depicted things are representatives of experienced moments and the associated feelings.”

Haiku photography is action photography, you capture the moment and the moment is not repeatable. Art is created without a fixed plan. This is what appeals to Nikolaus most. The images that resulted from his “planless” photoshoot (which nevertheless follows a concept) are dreamy and poetic — much like a haiku indeed.

Click on the photos to see a larger image in original dimensions.