Summit photos with a difference: Ludwig Watteler (66) re-stages local mountains

Created: 07/07/2022, 12:00 p.m

By: Sebastian Grauvogl

Impressive: the cross on the floor cutting.

© Ludwig Watteler

Ludwig Watteler (66) photographed 90 summit crosses.

He is currently exhibiting 45 of them in the Waitzinger Keller in Miesbach.

An unusual perspective of the mountains in the region.

Miesbach

– Ludwig Watteler (66) is enlightened in the middle of the night.

At the turn of the year 2006/2007, he and his wife were sitting on the summit of the Brecherspitz, which was snow-free at the time.

When he then turned towards the cross, it happened.

"It went bang there," says Watteler.

In that one moment he senses that summit crosses mean much more than just marking the highest point of a mountain.

For him, they have stood for the moment when he sees them for the first time on a mountain tour.

And that's exactly how he captures them with his SLR camera in black and white.

Whether with backlight, reflections, shadows, whether blurred in the fog or partially covered by pines or rocks, whether made of metal or wood, whether with the body of Christ or without: Watteler captures how he sees the cross on the mountain.

He doesn't put it in a frame

Summit crosses as a "connection between heaven and earth"

The trained photographer from Gräfelfing called his exhibition, which he is currently showing in the Waitzinger Keller in Miesbach, “connection between heaven and earth”.

45 of his now 90 works are hanging in the art gallery in the east foyer on the first floor of the cultural center until July 30th.

A premiere in the district of Miesbach, which means a lot to Watteler.

After all, it all started in the local mountains.

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The latter are also represented in the exhibition with their own “Miesbach corner”.

This is one of the best ways to see what Watteler's perspective achieves: it frees the crosses from their topographical corset.

Altitude and panorama of the summit suddenly become insignificant.

And so the photos of Ankel- and Schlierseespitz, each with their manageable height of around 1300 meters, are just as impressive as the motifs on prominent 2000m and 3000m peaks in Austria and South Tyrol.

Photographer Ludwig Watteler from Gräfelfing photographs summit crosses as a mountaineer sees them first.

© STEFAN SCHWEIHOFER

Watteler decides which cross to put next in the picture in a very traditional way: He opens a map and chooses a route that suits the weather and season.

"I don't have a list to check off," assures the photographer.

It's about mountaineering for him, not about the forced collection of peaks or meters in altitude.

This is exactly what would turn the natural moments he wants to capture into artificially created situations.

Incidentally, this is also a reason why Watteler refrains from photographing summits several times.

"It would just be a reproduction," he explains.

No post-processing on the computer

The 66-year-old also refrains from post-processing on the computer.

Only his self-made, white passe-partouts influence the effect of the summit crosses.

But here, too, Watteler takes care not to dilute the authenticity, but rather to emphasize it.

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Anyone strolling through the exhibition in the Waitzinger Keller will realize that the cross often goes under even on a mountain tour.

Who takes the time to study the grain of the wood or the fixing of the tethers when they are distracted by a blessed view all around?

It seems almost reassuring that Watteler himself has such a "weak moment" from time to time.

So he didn't photograph the cross itself at the Hohe Munde in the Mieming mountains, but its shadow.

In the end it was almost a product of chance, explains the 66-year-old.

He tried to photograph the dried stamp in the summit book box in order to be able to mirror it digitally and thus be able to decipher it.

He then noticed the impressive shadow cast by the cross.

The photo that Watteler chose as the cover photo for his Miesbach exhibition looks no less impressive: the Hachelspitz cross.

Again, a rather unknown, but no less worthwhile tour, which can even be made as a detour on the way to Jägerkamp.

"The summit isn't on any map," says Watteler.

The cross, on the other hand, has now received a prominent place thanks to him.

Further information

is available at https://gipfel kreuze.myportfolio.com.

so called