Christian Block

b. 1965, Germany

Born in 1965, Christian Block studied Aviation in Cologne, Germany before later pursuing photography in 2003. Since 1997, Block has flown countless long-distance flights in a Boeing 747 delivering cargo from one place to another. For Block, photography has become an avenue for him to share his unique experience and perspective.

To fly away from a day, towards the night. Passing over airy, weightless clouds and fog banks away into the ink black darkness, around kilometre high thunderstorm clouds filled with unknown energy, straight into the sunrise. To recognise the first glimpse of the sunlight, reflected red glowing by the Himalaya peaks. A night flight over the pitch black Atlantic, but never completely dark, the horizon can always be seen along with the stars and the moon, bring companionship to him over the water.

These moments, interwoven with the immensely dynamic environment of the cockpit, with its clocks and displays, indicators, switches and buttons are the ingredients for his works. Through the reading and interpretation of those instruments, an Artificial World is projected into reality, which becomes the key towards navigating the darkness and clouds without visual references. These indications show the airspeed, altitude and the engine parameter.

It is impossible to tell the time and space during flight, thus the dependance on those artificial world. Every snapshot from the immobile speed indicator means that at this moment the airplane moved a couple of hundreds of meters. The day shortening towards the east, and extending towards the west, passing the meridian, the day is renewed.

To capture this paradox in a photo and make it visible, is one of the reason he grab his camera. The motive out of this field of tension between nature and technology is in the matter of abstraction new defined. The digital photography provides the tools to depict a moment of life through a photo, the way he saw and wished. The works develop in his thoughts and there will be the moment at which nature and his work environment would be let out.