Ingmar Björn Nolting 2020 Highly Commended
An international border runs between Konstanz, Germany, and Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, but residents moved freely between the municipalities before the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in hopes of limiting infections, officials erected first one fence and, two weeks later, a second one, with a gap of several feet in between. The goal was to prevent the physical contact that these young couples managed on April 18, along a stretch where there’s still only a single barrier. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Hospital beds are available for the makeshift hospital to be set up in the exhibition halls of Hanover Fair on April 4. The makeshift hospital is to be used when all other possibilities are exhausted. In the exhibition halls, treatment facilities are to be created for 500 Covid-19 patients who do not require intensive medical treatment, but who can no longer be cared for at home due to the course of their disease. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Dr. Roland Kolepke poses for a portrait shortly before the start of his shift at the COVID-19 test centre at the Ludwigsburg Hospital on March 25. In Germany, tests are carried out on a comparatively large scale. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Church services are prohibited, churches closed. An improvised stage for the Easter services was set up in the drive-in cinema in Düsseldorf. 400 cars came to the ecumenical service on Good Friday on April 10. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Mohamed and Saleh, both from Syria, pose for a portrait during quarantine at a refugee reception center in Suhl on March 27. The entire accommodation with more than 500 residents was quarantined because one of the residents was infected with the novel corona virus. Unrest broke out in the shelter and the police had to intervene. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Members of the German Bundestag listening to the speech of Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 23. Distance regulations exist for the sessions of the Bundestag. „Nobody wants to hear this, but the truth is that we are not living in the final phase of this pandemic, but at the beginning,“ said Angela Merkel. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
My aunt during a dental treatment in Vlotho on April 29. Dentist Dörte Stübbe has bought „Sundström“ protective helmets on March 19 to protect herself and her patients from the virus. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Andrea and Rainer Zube play chorales on a meadow in Essingen on April 19. For five weeks now, the members of the „Posaunenchor Essingen“, a church brass band, have been playing every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. all over the village as they cannot meet due to the pandemic. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
The closed border between the German village of Sigmarszell and the Austrian village of Hohenweiler on April 18. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
The undertaker Markus Küstner before a funeral in the mourning hall of the cemetery in Dachsenhausen on April 17. Because of the high risk of infection at funerals, where mainly elderly people are present, the cemetery management decided not to allow any mourners at funerals. For this reason Markus Küstner conducts the burials alone. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Prof. Dr. med. Tobias Welte, Vice President of the Hannover Medical School, Dr. Martin Memming, Stephan Weil (SPD), Minister President of Lower Saxony and Colonel Manfred Schreiber during a press conference at the makeshift hospital in the Hannover trade fair halls on April 4. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Cameron Carpenter during the rehearsal for the livestream Easter concert in the Konzerthaus Berlin on April 11. Due to the ban on events, the concert was held without an audience. The empty concert hall offered him new opportunities to position his tailor-made organ and loudspeakers. A concert of such acoustic quality would not have been possible in the presence of an audience, says Carpenter. © Ingmar Björn Nolting
Measure and Middle - a journey through Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out in favour of a ‘measure and middle’ approach to the ‘new’ coronavirus. At that time, 28 February 2020, with less than 50 confirmed infections in Germany, large parts of the population did not believe that the virus could harm this country, which has one of the best healthcare systems and the strongest market economy in Europe. Under strict precautions, my path took me 9000km through the country during the lockdown where I took photographs on the frontlines and in the backyards of the Corona crisis to create a coherent and personal document of the situation. My photographic essay ‘Measure and Middle’ examines the state of German society – a nation that is often associated with bureaucracy, control and order – during an exceptional time of crisis.
About the Photographer
Ingmar Björn Nolting (b. 1995) lives and works as a freelance photographer in Leipzig, Germany. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Dortmund. His work focuses on long-term photo essays dealing with issues of social, geographical and geopolitical isolation. He is a founding member of DOCKS Collective, humanist photography. His work has been published in TIME Magazine and ZEIT Magazin. Nolting received a Getty Reportage Grant, a VG Bildkunst Grant, won the World Report Award in the student category and was among the finalists of W. Eugene Smith Student Grant.