People Things
Guided by childhood memories, family stories and literature, Henry Schulz embarks on a journey to reconnect with the past. With his camera, he searches for places that mirror his recollections of Germany—forgotten spaces between city and countryside where history lingers. His photographs capture the cycle of memory and change, revealing a world where the past is never truly lost, only waiting to be rediscovered.
Photography Henry Schulz
I set off with my camera because my head was full of memories and stories that, since childhood, had formed my worldview and view of Germany. Family stories, encounters, literature. The wish arose to find places that correspond to these memories, places where they are at home.
In precisely conceived compositions, usually taken in areas between countryside and city, I also describe a cycle. Of disappearance and reappearance, of memory and oblivion. In these periods of time, themes such as home and childhood can be reinterpreted and social change can be experienced.
I experienced it as a journey of exploration into our country, but also into myself. Many of my pictures contain abandoned places that are often in a ruinous state. But what I find here is not decay and the end of a story, but a place that is at an exciting point in a cycle. A coexistence of man and nature.
The places in the photographs contain ciphers of memory, perhaps of a carefree time, a youthful freedom. Memories have passed through so many hands and have manifested themselves. A cycle of generations and their changes and redesigns. A freedom of a new beginning. I see this as a positive approach in my photographs. Maybe one can describe Germany also this way.
“I set off with my camera because my head was full of memories and stories that, since childhood, had formed my worldview and view of Germany. Family stories, encounters, literature.”
About Henry
Henry Schulz (b. 1996, Hamburg, Germany) has worked as a freelance photographer based in Berlin since 2016. From 2018 to 2022, he studied photography at the Ostkreuz School of Photography in Berlin. People Things is his first photo book, which features a selection of his serial landscape photographs taken primarily in Germany between 2020 and 2023.
The photo book is available to order here
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