Wattenruh
A photographic Journey on the Island of Sylt, Germany from Alexander von Wiedenbeck
Sylt – a hotspot for the prominent and elite society. A barely affordable domicile and second home for the rich and famous. This is a picture that is all too often conveyed to us in the reports on television or in the people magazines. Fortunately, over the years that I have been a guest, I have been taught something better again and again. Because here in this magical place, I was allowed to discover far more than the general and yet very superficial approach suggests. The island is characterized by a very special, constantly changing landscape, which can convey an incredible peace and silence … of course, that you are not on the promenade in Westerland during the main season.
Looking back today, I would say that it was a touch of fate that led me to the island of Sylt and to the Watthof many years ago. At the time when I was looking for a special place with this mentioned silence for the production of my first book project “Obsession for Freedom”, I finally found it in Rantum. The calm and deserted Wadden Sea on one side and the sometimes rough, capricious North Sea on the other, both here in the narrowest part of the island only ten minutes’ walk apart – the perfect place for my first work, which acted for me as a kind of liberation from any commercial constraints.
It shouldn’t be the last time that this island and the Watthof saw me. Almost a tradition, since then I have come every year (in some years even twice) to this wonderful place and to the Watthof, with which I now have a deeply connected friendship, which I would not want to miss at any price. So it is ultimately due to this fateful encounter with Ulrike & Uwe that you are now holding my Watthof Tagebuch in your hands. A smorgasbord of my photographic journeys to all those special places and moments here on Sylt, which more than once inspired me to new deeds and adventures … and so I hope, or rather I would like to see, that this book maybe is an inspiration for you to a reunion on the island.
