Adam Neuba: A Macro World Shaped by Scientific Precision, Metal, and Living Creatures
- 1. Juni
- 7 Min. Lesezeit
Adam Neuba builds his photographs like small, precise experiments. His artistic world is rooted in his scientific background, in an intense engagement with matter, and in a sharpened eye for forms that are easily overlooked in everyday life. As an experimental chemist, he spent years designing and synthesising new molecules; in photography, the same impulse drives him to create unexpected relationships between living creatures, metal, light, and space.
His compositions begin with an idea and develop through manual work, careful staging, and constant testing of the relationships between the elements. Small organisms take on the role of protagonists. Steel, aluminium, and metal elements often come from workshop materials, scrap metal, or electronic waste; through light, reflection, and the camera angle, they gain a new visual function. From this encounter between nature and technology, an image emerges that feels considered down to the smallest detail while still preserving the life and unpredictability of its living subject.
To what extent has working in the laboratory shaped the way you build your photographs? Has science given you discipline and a sense of structure, or has art sharpened your eye for finding a story even in the material itself?
As an experimental chemist, my passion for many years was planning and carrying out the synthesis of new molecules. It is probably only a coincidence, however, that I now create minimalist compositions as an artist working in macro and close-up photography. My path to specialising in this particular kind of photography was a gradual one, shaped by many different factors. At the beginning, I experimented with various materials, as well as with living and non-living elements from nature, and studied their visual appearance under the influence of perspective and lighting. It was, and still is, an empirical process that challenges my own photographic abilities through ever-new ideas and, in doing so, focuses and refines them into a particular style.
My images are almost always driven by the challenge of photographing something new, or of revealing a different perspective or visual level within a motif that may already seem familiar. Developing a photographic scene from the ground up, building it in a structured way, and then capturing it with the camera is simply a wonderful feeling. In that sense, there are clear parallels with “molecule design” in the laboratory: it is often the new and the unknown that attracts me. There are also overlaps on the level of personal qualities, such as patience, a high tolerance for frustration, and a slight tendency towards perfectionism, all of which have always been essential to the way I work.
At the same time, I have always been someone with a strong interest in art and a fascination with both realistic and abstract representations of structures, forms, and textures. In that sense, I believe the artist and the scientist in me are inseparably connected, and this gives me a certain feeling for light, perspective, proportions, and surreal abstraction, which are essential aspects of my images.
In your work, nature appears in deliberately constructed, fictional scenes. What can such a staged space reveal that a documentary photograph could hardly show in the same way?
The nature and essence of documentary photography is to reproduce reality authentically and to record social, historical, or everyday events through a conceptual approach without staging. It serves to inform and foster understanding by telling stories that touch people and encourage reflection. The rejection of image manipulation is a central ethical issue here, and even individual steps in image editing are viewed critically and subject to strict principles.
Telling small stories is also the aim of my images. These are stories that, of course, do not occur in reality in this form, but they do have a direct connection to our lived reality, because the motifs and elements I use are not unfamiliar to the viewer. It is only the novel and unconventional merging of these elements into a single unit that allows the viewer to experience an unexpected emotional encounter outside their everyday world, while still connecting to a current theme that touches many people: nature versus technology.
Another aspect concerns image editing. The real image, the photograph of my compositions, is always only the first step in the artistic process. Only in a second step do I use targeted digital post-processing to create the final form of my artistic photographic vision for the work. This step allows me to express myself creatively and freely as an artist, completely independently of the practical limitations that sometimes come into play in the real world of close-up photography.
In your work, nature and technology enter the same visual space and eventually come together as a harmonious whole. What would you like viewers to feel first, before they begin to think about the meaning of the image?
With my images, I would first like to make viewers curious and spark excitement, so that they allow themselves to embark on an unknown journey beyond the everyday flood of images. Encouraging reflection, and at times provoking a response, is naturally part of that, because the reaction to my images is not always positive. The fact that small living creatures are taken out of their natural environment and placed on industrial components is sometimes viewed critically.
When you work with living subjects, metallic elements, and controlled light, so much depends on the smallest shifts. How do you recognise the moment when a scene is ready to be photographed?
That is an extremely tricky matter. It requires an enormous amount of patience, sensitivity, and a certain knowledge of animal behaviour in order to end up with a perfect image. In the end, body posture, movement, and even the position of the legs and antennae all play an important role in creating a clear overall work that feels visually balanced and natural in its effect. Over the years, I have been able to gather a great deal of experience in this area, and I now have a good feel for the right moment, as well as for how the setting must be designed so that the small living creatures can leave my little home studio as stress-free and unharmed as possible. Truly good images can only be created in an atmosphere that is calm and stress-free for these small creatures.
You have said that Lost In Thought was a turning point in your development. Why that photograph, and what did it reveal to you about your own artistic path?
By now, my collection of images has become quite extensive, and with every work I associate a story, or it has shaped me in a particular way. Two images stand out for me personally, and those are Lost In Space and Lost In Thought. Lost In Space was the first image and, in a way, a “door opener” into a photographic niche. It came about rather spontaneously and from a mood of experimentation. When I started with this unconventional idea about six years ago, I did not know where the journey would lead, whether the whole thing made sense at all, or whether it might simply end up in a drawer as an idea without a clear concept or direction. Lost In Space showed me: something could come of this. Images with a recognisable quality, perhaps even an artistic style of my own.
Lost In Thought shaped me much more deeply as an artist. It was the first image I thought about for a long time and planned well in advance. It took a great deal of effort and time. The image showed me that some things in artistic work simply need time. Ideas have to mature. They often arise spontaneously and cannot be planned. As an artist, be authentic, stay true to your own signature, and create ten excellent images in a year rather than thirty mediocre ones.
In your more recent works, metal increasingly comes to the fore. Why does this particular material fascinate you so much?
I generally work with steel or aluminium. These materials are versatile in their appearance, and in a minimalist presentation they seem simple and timeless. In addition, the variety of forms and structures is incredibly wide, and their surfaces can be altered, too. Very often, I use metal elements that originally ended up in metal or electronic scrap. Most of the material is therefore already there, and it can also be adapted or modified quite easily in a workshop.
The optical properties, however, are the most important aspect. Metals are characterised by high gloss, opacity, and strong reflectivity. I use these qualities to translate my ideas into images. At the same time, these characteristics present a photographer with some demanding challenges. Especially with shiny metals, the appearance depends on the viewing angle, the lighting angle, and the surface structure, whether polished, sanded, or brushed. This calls for a great deal of patience and a willingness to experiment.
Your photographs feel as though each one carries its own short story. How does that narrative emerge: before the photograph is taken, during the working process, or only once the image takes its final form?
The desire to tell a story was very important to me from the beginning. This gives each photographic concept emotional depth, authenticity, and personal resonance, as well as a close connection to the artist. Often, I already have the finished image and the story behind it in my mind, and then I plan the execution. Sometimes the context of an image also reveals itself to me during the working process, while building the scene or during the final development. That, however, is less often the case.
The narrative also emerges through a consistent reduction of complexity in my images and a coherent visual signature in the way they are presented. In this way, each new work fits seamlessly into the larger whole, as if it were the continuation of a story.
In his photographs, the macro world becomes a space for storytelling. The body of an insect, a metal surface, a reflection, and a shadow enter into a carefully staged relationship, in which scientific discipline and artistic intuition merge into one shared way of seeing.
