Jan C Schlegel Photography

Jan was born in the Black Forest of southern Germany on 13 September 1965. Jan’s youth was spent on Lake Constance, or Bodensee,where he underwent an apprenticeship in photography that changed the course of his life. First drawn to photography at the age of 12, his initial interests were with the technical side of the photographic process. By age 14, Jan devoted himself to his darkroom, fascinated by the apparition of the photographic image from trays of chemistry, light, and silver alone. In those days, Jan was transfixed on perfecting the technical processes entailed, but it was not then that he discovered the creative soul that today fuels his work. That would be left to winning an Agfa photography competition that led to a transcendent encounter with master photographer Walter Schels. It was there on Lake Constance that Jan’s apprenticeship began by way of a portrait seminar with the formidable creativity of Schels. At age 19, Jan was absolutely inspired by the power and the passion of that portraiture to which he was introduced at so pivotal a moment in the young photographer’s life. Jan acknowledges the significant impact of that time by noting that Schels was very passionate and absolutely driven, and it was made apparent that passion was synonymous with excellence. The young Schlegel was soon filled with an ardent desire and passion to produce truly powerful images that communicated the depth, individuality, and diversity of the human condition.