A GERMAN photographer who visited West Cork in the 80s is looking to make contact with some of the people he photographed during his time here.
Ulrich Ahrensmeier from Garbsen in Lower Saxony was commissioned in 1988 to take pictures for a travel guide on Ireland a Swiss-German publishing house.
He toured the country and in 1989 he visited Skibbereen with the guide’s author.
He has visited the country many times since, but now he has started a new photo project and will retrace his steps, taking similar photos, over 30 years later.
‘I want to revisit the places I covered in the travel guide and ‘re-shoot’ the people I took photos of long ago.
‘Some might not be around anymore, some have probably emigrated to distant shores, but many will still be in the south west,’ he said.
He is hoping the West Cork public will help him find out names and, if possible, phone numbers, so he can make contact again. ‘I would be very grateful indeed,’ he said. ‘The name of the fish store lady was Nadine. For years I toured then north of Germany with an audio-visual show presenting [my photos of] Ireland in culture centres, church parishes and congress centres. In 2000 I was the official photographer with the Irish Pavilion on the World exhibition (EXPO 2000) over here in Hannover. For my daily living I worked as a professional photographer in the arts and building department of a church trust.’
Although he had taken a lot of the images of the show in Skibbereen, he says he will only be available to visit from June 18th to July 2nd, ‘so unfortunately I will not be around for this year’s Carbery Show.’ Anyone with any information on those photographed should email the details and a contact phone number or email address, to [email protected], marking the subject line ‘Ulrich’, or contact the offices of The Southern Star.
