Ono Ludwig - Berlin

We met Ono several years ago in Berlin.  A photograph of a semi-nude boxer by the name of Uwe caught husbear's eye.  It now hangs in our living room.  Ono and his partner Jens live in Berlin and his work has graced the covers on many of the gay and fetish publications in Europe.

Twisted: Did you always want to be a photographer? How did you get started?

 

Ono: Earlier in my youth, I studied design and art at the University in part because my dad is an artist. Then I began to take photography as a minor in Muenster and my professor told me I should keep it up. That was about 8 years or so when I was 32.

Twisted: What attracts you to a model?

 

Ono: I don’t actually look for beauty per se; I’m more interested in them having character and it showing up in their faces. That’s due to the fact that I myself do not consider myself handsome, but I look interesting. I look for that in my models. In general I find extremely good looking men (Pretty boys) very boring.

 

Twisted: Why do you prefer film over digital?

 

Ono: Sometimes, I do use digital, but it’s just for fun or to practice a specific theme I’m working on, but film is more of an art/skill. You can take thousands of digital photos with a digital camera and of course you end up with a couple of good ones; or you can even doctor them. This is not art. With film, though, you are more committed; in part because film is expensive, as is development. With me, I take one roll of 36 films per shoot/model and then keep about 3 or 4.

 

You can do a lot of creative things with the negatives, when you develop film in a dark room.  Also, with a digital camera, you can doctor things up: remove all imperfections, clean up the skin.  Film is more authentic and clearer. Digital is not normal or realistic.  Also, with film, the value of the pieces goes up.  A session with a model can last one hour (mostly) or as much as 3 or 4 hours.

 

Twisted: Does the City of Berlin (or its people and cultures) influence your body of work?

 

Ono: Sometimes, Like in my “Generation of Love” (GL) series, since it’s about migration and immigration, and in the case of GL, about people from different cultures and races getting together and producing a new type of German – mixed race Germans, Germanized foreigners, etc. 

I feel I could to some of the same type of work in other cities, but it would be much more different. For example, the gays in Paris have a different style than the gays in Berlin. As we say in German (Andere Laender, andere Sitten! (Other countries, other customs). I could transport my style of photography elsewhere, but the photos would not be the same.

 

Twisted: There are a lot of homoerotic elements to your work, as well as you are often featured in gay publications – how has this impacted you as an artist?

 

Ono: My models are actually about 50-50 hetero and gay, plus my themes change form day to day. Sometimes I get up in the morning and decide right then, that that day I’ll photograph something/someone erotic. Other days, I decide I’ll photograph or architecture, or plants, or animals, etc.

 

I’m gay, but I don’t only make photographs of gay themes. I photograph everything. Hetero, gay, normal freak.  Interesting term: what do you consider normal and what do you consider freak? That is hard to define. Normal and freak are very subjective themes. When I was young, I followed and dressed in the punk/freak style. To me it’s about breaking away from the norm, the usual.

 

Twisted: How/when did you begin working in the fetish scene? What attracts you to this genre as an artist?

 

Ono : I think the fetish interest has been there since the beginning, but for me it’s more of the mystery of it. For example, I like photographing models in masks and having the viewer wonder who is behind the mask. The same with bondage, I want people to wonder why the model has been tied and is being held captive. My specific fetish is actually not the bondage itself, but more voyeuristic. I want to see what’s happening and why. That’s my turn-on. I also like to photograph, and get turned on by abused nipples, nice big goatees, the nape of the neck, muscular legs in leather, hairy pits, etc. All in all, though, fetish is only a piece of my body of work.

 

Twisted: We understand you did a piece for Bear Week (BEAROPOLIS), which is not your typical model type – what was it like?

 

Ono: That was actually a contract job, I was asked to take some photographs for the event’s poster. I did it in my style, but because it was a contract, I had certain criteria I had to meet, which is not what I’m used to doing. One of these requirements, of course, was “very hairy” and it had to be high-key.

 

I found BEAROPPOLIS very interesting and a lot of fun. My type is more the muscle bear.

 

Twisted: Do you have a favorite piece and why?

 

Ono: I really don’t have a favorite model or photograph. I have taken thousands of photographs in so many series/themes and could not begin to narrow them down to one favorite piece. .

 

Twisted: What new projects are in the works?

 Ono: The Generation of Love series and Heroes is another one. In the first one, I am very interested in migration and immigration in Germany, as well as all of Europe and the whole world. I try to convey this event in my photographs.

 

In the second series, Heroes, I’m more interested and am really talking about what some would call the anti-hero - in other words, not the “winners” and the people who make the news. I’m interested in the people who struggle with just regular day to day issues or problems, such as what the homeless and disenfranchised experience.

 

Twisted: If our readers are interested in learning more about you and your work - where can they find more info?

 

Ono: They can go to my web-page: www.ono-ludwig.de. They can also sign up for my newsletter there and I can keep them posted on upcoming exhibits I have.