Rupert Kogler Photography

Although I generally prefer to grab my camera and go out without any specific plan or concept in mind, of course there are also a few topics and subjects I’m constantly working on since years. I just never called them projects. I still don’t actually. So, that’s why I also created the Series site here. Nevertheless there’re a few particular topics which keep my mind and camera busy and you can find two topics, I dare to call projects here.

First of all there’s my long term project „Natürliche Nähe – Linz‘ verborgene Aura“, which is dedicated to the wetlands around the city of Linz and still one of my favorite never-ending subjects. And beside that, there’s „The Beauty beyond“, which is pretty much in progress and about the immeasurable value of a healthy natural world, it’s unseen beauty and our understanding of nature, as humans.

In Upper Austria’s central region some still mostly unaffected wetland areas, which harbor valuable little ecosystems and biotopes, can be found. But the protection of these places is quite challenging, especially since they are located so close to the town of Linz with a huge human population. So, also regarding this project, it seems crucial to me, to convey the importance of intact natural habitats to the people.

Naturally all images you can find in this project are made within these wetland areas. This one might be my most comprehensive project. Actually I’m working on it since I started with nature photography back in 2012. Since these wetland areas are close to my hometown, they are just my favorite nearby locations. And, of course, the spots I visit the most, are those with the biggest output.

Currently I’m quite convinced, that the universal beauty of healthy natural phenomenons goes far beyond their visual grace. The value of an unaffected and vital natural world is immeasurable and its displayed beauty could be seen as an evidence for its importance for all life on earth. Maybe we should just learn to pay much more attention on the emotions, we experience from time to time out there, due to the beauty that surrounds us?

But the possibility to witness real natural phenomenons requires real natural phenomenons. One probably simply cannot experience the same emotions in an commercial monocultural forest than in an primal rainforest. One won’t feel the beauty of a field of wildflowers on an agricultural field of grain. Therefore, also a clarification of the degraded concept of nature is urgently needed and people have to learn to recognize affected nature by experiencing unaffected sceneries.