Portrait - Photographs is the first comprehensive monograph of the Austrian photographer Bernhard Fuchs, who is currently living in Düsseldorf. Since the early nineties, Fuchs has been working on a group of photographs focussing on people in their ancestral environment.It is a positioning of different age groups, beginning with an emphasis on youth which also mirrors Bernhard Fuchs' path from his home in the Mühlviertel in Upper Austria to a large German city. Timm Starl, a well-known photo publicist, comments on the particularity of the people portrayed: .... the are pausing, holding on for a moment, they appear open and reserved at the same time. They do not flinch - as if they decided to have their photo taken although they know full well that they will thereby only disclose their outward appearance. They gaze into the photographer s direction, but they do not observe him working. They register what is happening without expecting any surprises. they let him have his way, resting in themselves in a special manner and radiating with self-evident certainty. In spite of that, or rather, precisely because of that, they are all what they are: unique, special, unmistakable.
