Sand, Sea, and Clouds

Discover Baltrum With The Camera

By Hermann Groeneveld / SilvergrainClassics

Imagine a timeless island; a place with no cars, a local dialect spoken by few people, and wind-swept beaches with a biting sea tang in the air. Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his Natural History in the first century AD, and although it has become a modern resort with up-to-date infrastructure, its emphasis on conserving the natural environment means that the natural beauty has not changed.

East Frisia is the north-westerly tip of Germany, bordering the Netherlands. Seven inhabited islands and a few sandbanks line up like a string of pearls in the North Sea. The island of Baltrum is the smallest of them.

I am a native East Frisian, but have lived in Bavaria in southern Germany for fifty years. Although I feel quite comfortable in Munich, I am always drawn back to my childhood home and landscape. I particularly enjoy being on my “little pile of sand”, Baltrum. It is, in my opinion, the most beautiful of the East Frisian islands. In addition to “normal” or High German, the people in the region speak their own language: Low German, which is quite close to Dutch. But that is not what makes me return again and again.

It is almost impossible to feel hectic on Baltrum. Since it is a car-free island, you mainly get around on foot — that in itself slows you down. But the feeling begins before you even reach the island, with the departure of the ferry from the coastal harbor of Neßmersiel. The process of searching for photographic jewels, without any pressure to succeed but also without any guarantee of success, is another slow, mindful part of life on Baltrum to me. Analog photography just seems to fit perfectly here.

I enjoy spending hours alone on the island, looking for traces that tide, wind, and rain have left on sandy beaches, dunes, and mudflats. Over the years, what started out as occasional pictures taken on walks became a major project. Making the small and inconspicuous look large and approachable in pictures has become a task that I will never complete. I now know the places where the creative forces of nature generate landscapes of bizarre beauty, always new and completely different from the previous year’s visit. It is these small works of art unfolding before my eyes that move from my head straight into my heart. Most people pass them by: washed-out tideways and grooves at low tide, the structure of gentle waves as the water rises, and the light and shadow of wind-carved dunes with marram grass.

I find it particularly appealing to track down the finest shades of grey, where I am myself often puzzled afterwards as to whether I photographed water or sand or perhaps both. Sometimes I limit the image detail so much that, thanks to the additional reduction caused by the black and white film and the lack of any reference size, it is almost impossible to understand what I have actually photographed. I like to go so abstract in my pictures that they puzzle the viewer. In photography, it is often the reduction to the essentials that makes it possible to discover the diversity of nature. Nevertheless, everything visible in the printed images is present in the original negatives. I have left nothing out and I have added nothing.

Of course, there are role models in my photographic career that I have oriented myself on. Brett Weston and his White Sands portfolio should be mentioned. I also love the photographic abstractions in architecture and nature by Bruce Barnbaum. Alfred Ehrhardt opened my eyes to what is happening off the coast of my homeland in The Wadden Sea. First published in 1937, it was reprinted in 2013 as a faithful facsimile edition. His view was documentary, and characterized by the Bauhaus style. Realized by hand with the simplest of means, a Zeiß-Ikon-Camera 6 x 9 cm, it was the perfect inspiration for me to find my own interpretation of the landscapes on Baltrum.

In order to leave enough room for the “real thing”, for searching and seeing, my photographic equipment is rather spartan: a Leica M6 loaded with ADOX Silvermax or ADOX CHS 100 II black and white film, which I usually carry under my jacket to protect it from the fine sand. My lenses are the Summicron-M 1:2/35, which I use most of the time, and occasionally the Summilux-M 1:1.4/75. They were my only lenses for more than 30 years.

As I can expect about two f-stops more light than usual on bright days by the sea, I often manage without a tripod, but I always have a small travel tripod at hand. This opens up new perspectives with long exposures in the range of seconds. Water, sand, and clouds seem to mix, grey surfaces overlap and create completely new shapes and structures, providing a little thrill along the way. Because this rather experimental way of working thrives on slowly approaching a convincing result by playing with different exposure times, the results are hardly predictable. Only the black and white film on the light table reveals pleasant surprises — and some rejects. However, experience has taught me how to increase my accuracy during the shooting process.

The photographs in this portfolio were taken between 2007 and 2022 and I digitized the black and white films myself. For many years I used a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED and the scanning program VueScan. The processing of the results, such as sharpening, contrast adjustments and partial post-exposure, was done in Affinity Photo.

I now work with a Plustek OpticFilm 120 and the SilverFast Archive Suite. In my experience, and for my purposes, the results are almost as good as with a drum scanner, and the SilverFast software helps me to organize my image archive.

Light Becomes Exposure: A Chance to Experience Baltrum Yourself

In May 2025, the Silvergrain Academy is organizing a seven-day photo travel workshop for film photography enthusiasts on the magical island of Baltrum. During extensive photo walks at different times of day, I will take you to my favorite photo spots on the island. The light of the north, sensitive observation, and correct exposure represent a creative process, whether in direct sunlight, cloudy skies, at the “blue hour”, or even in rainy weather. Techniques and equipment will be explained through practical examples, whether the use and added value of a light meter, or color and greyscale filters for black and white films.

Marwan El Mozayen, editor-in-chief of SilvergrainClassics, will offer the development of exposed 35mm and medium format black and white films on site. This means that image results can be shared and analyzed immediately. A scanning station, together with a computer and film scanner, will enable participants to digitize the day’s results.

More information about the workshop and a link to book by December 31, 2024 can be found on the SilvergrainClassics website under Workshop & Tours:

Unterwegs im Sandmeer und Wattwasser von Baltrum

This article first appeared in issue 24 of SilvergrainClassics.