Josef H. Neumann (born May 27, 1953) is a German photographer, photo and media designer, photographic artist, specialized photo journalist und art historian.
Neumann is also the inventor of the chemogram, which is an experimental art involving chemicals.
Education
From 1967 to 1970 Josef H. Neumann was apprenticed at the photographer Gustav Wenning in his birthplace Rheine. From 1974 to 1986 he studied visual communication at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts and in 1979 he extended his studies in journalism, philosophy and history of art at the University of Münster.
Artistic work
Since 1986 Neumann photographed for various publishing houses in Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland. Neumann mainly worked for the publisher C. J. Bucher (Munich) while often using the Russian panorama camera Horizont. Several panorama illustrated books were published, including Paris, Vienna, Switzerland, Munich, Germany, Tuscany und Sicily.
His illustrated book Deutschland was awarded twice – in the years 1987 and 1990 – with the Kodak-Fotobuchpreis. In addition, this book has a preface by president Richard von Weizsäcker and was published with an edition of more than 40.000 copies. As the German government has given one copy as a present to each host for several years the book has a worldwide spread.
In his city of residence Neumann collaborated with his Gerhard P. Müller and they created two voluminous illustrated books on church treasures of Dortmund, which were published in 1987 and 1999.
Since 2003 Neumann has artistically worked at intervalls in Portugal (Algarve) on photo and video productions.
Im Januar 2012 he opened his atelier INICIO.de together with the Agentinian artist Virginia Novarin in the Unionviertel in Dortmund.
Today Neumann works as freelancing photo designer producing image and product commercials for print and video. In addition Neumann regularly works as lecturer on didactic methods of photography for public institutions and private companies.
Josef H. Neumann has been a member of the German Society for Photography (DGPh) since 1986th.
Neumann published for all major German photographic journals like Color Foto, Foto, Fotoheft, Fotomagazin, Minolta Mirror, Nikon News, Photo, Photographie, Photo Revue, Professional Camera, ProfiFoto His photographs have been used in numerous German and European publications.
Teaching
Since 1979 Neumann lectured at intervals at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts in the fields photo design and social work. He also had an assignment for Designing with Electronic Media ("Gestaltung mit elektronischen Medien") with the department of computer science of the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts for 20 years.
While having an academic status at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts in the department of design from 1986 to 1987 Neumann wrote two standard references Filme kreativ nutzen (Using films creatively) and Objektive kreativ nutzen (Using lenses creatively) together with Harald Mante in 1986 and 1988.
1993 Neumann lectured at the former Fachhochschule Köln (now Technical University of Cologne) in the department of photo engineering.
After intensive and creative research in the new camera generation Zoom-Kompakte his book Zoomkompakte kreativ was published in 1994 on occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Japanese camera company Asahi Optical Joint Stock Co. alias Pentax.
Editorial work
From 1981 to 1996 Neumann was member of the editorial team of the German magazine Photographie in Düsseldorf and Zürich.
At the same time Neumann was chief editor of the German magazine Fotoheft from 1990 to 1992.
Research
1974 Discovery of the chemograms and determination of the term. The letter "o" was chosen for the optical influence in the chemogram. When creating a chemogram, a photographic image is first exposed to SW photo paper in the darkroom. The development is initiated and, immediately thereafter, is selectively painted with colorless chemicals in this photoemulsion during daylight. Each painted chemogram is unique. The reactions of the chemicals which ultimately evoke the coloring in the layer are only to a limited extent. They are abstract works of art which at the time of the discovery in 1974 formed an interface between painting and photography.
1976 First successful tests in producing "edible photo prints" using screen printing and coinage of the term
1992 Foundation of the company FOTOMeDIA and research with focus on electronic processing of pictures for multimedia projects.
1996 DIPO DIGITAL POSTCARD® Development, registration at the DPMA and marketing of the first digital postcards on disk
1998 Completion of research (begun in 1976) regarding the production of "edible photo prints" using piezotechnology and food colors.