Josh von Staudach’s new series “Bridges 360°” displays the bridges of Europe as they’ve never been seen before. The Stuttgart photographer traveled with his camera equipment across the continent to transform beautiful bridges, including the blue St. Andrew’s Suspension Bridge in Glasgow, into breathtaking 360° worlds.
His photography impresses through the precision of the images, but also through their imaginative staging and atmospheres. The extraordinary perspectives, removed from reality, expand our view. There is no front or back in Staudach’s pictures – the other side beyond the bridge is joined to this side. It is as if he bent the heavy steel beams or delicate arches of his bridges and twisted them into another form, in order to combine the various shots of his 360° photos into a new, surrealist perspective. Out of one footbridge, two, or sometimes three paths are created. The gaze is directed between riveted steel beams or entwined arches over the mirrored water. On the horizon lies the city: sometimes under a blanket of clouds, sometimes under a twilight sky.
For the extraordinary 360° scenes, Staudach uses special photography equipment. A specific panorama head on the tripod allows him to determine the center of rotation for the scene. The camera turns around this point during the illumination of the urban panorama, such that all vertical elements are congruent. Thus can Staudach finally bring together the various individual pictures into a large, new scenario. What might sound simple requires expensive preparation. In his studio, Staudach prepares his photographs in detail and even builds small test-models.
Staudach’s bridge-scapes mirror our modern, technological world and yet are disconnected from reality at the same time. He always photographs his urban landscapes with a set depth of field to make every detail, every level of the photograph visible. Out of focus is not an option. Precisely documented and just as lost in a dreamy reality, Josh von Staudach’s images are declarations of love to the perhaps most romantic structures of this world.

Karoline Kaizik


Extended horizons as far as the eye can see. The Stuttgart photographer Josh von Staudach presents his blurry, yet clear images. Haunting photographs promising calm and depth that magically pull us into their spell. Staudach’s works, always follow the horizon showing a manifold spectrum of nature and the sea, calming and meditative and yet always new. Nature offers inimitable, fluctuating color tones. Von Staudach manages to arrange these with great sensibility and passion. From his travel notes: “Majorca, February 2007. Paintings by Gerhard Richter and Hiroshi Sugimoto are projected on the screen of my memory. The tripod is set up; the camera ready. My eyes detect closeness and distance, colors and gradients, fog and reflections. I want to bundle all of this into one picture. I turn the camera and release the shutter. The display shows an astonishing result: Everything I saw is in. The surroundings painted the light and color on the digital chip. By panning the camera within the right angle I can determine the composition and fragmentation. There it is: softness and serenity, no sharpness, no details. Calm, deep, and meditative. It catches hold of me. This is how I will portray the island.”