Of all four seasons, winter represents transience and finitude more than any other. No question, all four seasons carry the element of change and transformation. But in winter, you can see that every change eventually comes to its end. Check out the images in this second installment of the Glimpses of Winter series, called “All That’s Left.”

As a photographer, I naturally try to discover beauty in each season and capture things that appeal to me and seem photogenic. But for some reason, I find this easiest in the fall and especially in the winter. It is as if the real world which usually likes to hide behind strength, beauty, energy, color, and youth, which jumps at the viewer this way, as if this world has now lost all its deceptive powers of illusion and allure in winter. And in what remains, a deep glimpse of the truth of the world can be seen. In the traces of the transience of the world, I can recognize: I will not be here always. I will end just like this tree that has lost its leaves, or like this flower of which only a meager dry stem is left. So I should use my time and enjoy it.

And equipped with this knowledge once more, I can now look forward to spring, no matter how often I have experienced it. It seems new and outrageously fantastic to me. This is a very fundamental insight: The enjoyment of the new needs the passing of the old.
Admittedly of course, this is true for the rest of the world, but not for me. I, for my part, plan to live forever. What do we say to the God of Death? Not today.

All That’s Left

The pictures of this small series show exactly that: transience. What was once beautiful, radiant, beguiling, seductive, powerful is now no more than a meager remnant. And yet: Often this remnant still has its own, often very simple beauty. It sometimes reminds me of the silence after listening to an epic piece of music. The last notes have faded away, but one still sits for a moment and enjoys the inner echo of the music.