Other-Worldly Urban Scenes: City Photography by Stephanie Jung

I don’t know about you, but I love photography. I could spend hours everyday browsing through photos of places around the world; it’s a great way to get an insight into places we have never been, and to see places we already have been in a new way. Today I’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Jung, a brilliant photographer from Germany. Stephanie’s photos are a bit different, though. She uses the double exposure technique to create other-worldly images of familiar places. The result? Fantastical new urban scenes. Enjoy!

Your photographs are very unique and eye-catching. How did this style develop?

The multiple-exposure technique was something I discovered when I was in Paris. I spent one day at the La Defense district, which is very busy most of the time. There was one moment when I wanted to increase this mood, so I started to experiment. But it developed the next year, when I was travelling through Japan. I was so overwhelmed by the big cities such as Tokyo with its hectic and lots of people wandering around. I needed to capture and exaggerate it, this is where I found my inspiration for my kind of work.

Talk us through the process from start to finish. How do you create these pieces? What’s the first thing you do?

Normally I wander around the city to discover unique motives and perspectives, mostly scenes of everyday life, but even then it’s not that easy to find the right scenery. Finding the right place is the most important and time-consuming challenge during my projects. After that, the process is pretty normal, I’m selecting the best photos and doing some postprocessing to optimize the pictures.

You seem to favour cities. Are there any particular city characteristics that you like best? How do you choose what to frame in each shot?

Yes, I am fascinated by big cities. I’m from a small town in Germany and so I really like the contrast to it. Sometimes I like the anonymity, so many people living in one citiy, but dont know anything of each other. And I think here you can see best how the time is passing by while walking through a city with bustling streets.

What message do you want these photos to give to viewers? What do you want them to say about each place they represent?

Besides the busy moods, I realized that it’s time and caducity what I want to show my work. Special moments, which exist very short, moments that are getting lost in time. I like that I can capture those moments with my camera, but often you don’t realize that it’s gone. So that is what I want to show with my work as well. It’s not really about the place itself, it’s more about that exact moment passing by.

In general, and aside from travel, what inspires your work (people, literature, etc)?

That really depends, but music is a huge inspiration. Sometimes when I walk around to take pictures, I listen to music, it creates the mood I need to get new ideas. But I’m also looking at several art blogs or communities, to see what other artists are doing, that’s really important! Not to copy any style, but to see what’s possible and to use it as a motivation to create new work.

But my biggest inspiration is simply life, you just have to take a look what’s happening around you.

Finally, if you could photograph anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

I would love to photograph in China, especially Hong Kong, I think it would be perfect to transport my idea, there are so many people living there, it must be full of life.

Another city would be Istanbul, a friend showed me pictures of the cityscape with charming, incline houses everywhere and little cozy streets. I think this city has it’s very own charm and I would love to capture it.

For more of Stephanie’s photography, visit her site here. (I highly recommend you do this as she has so many more amazing photographs from around the world there).

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