&ldquogregor international calendar award 2015&rdquo in bronze goes to the printpromotion calendartwelve photographic pieces of art move printing and paper technology into the focus of magic light installationsfrankfurt, 27 january 2015 &ndash its time to &ldquoswitch off the lights&rdquo when jürgen mai approaches with his camera. last year, the photographer from darmstadt bathed twelve production halls of german printing and paper technology manufacturers in complete blackness. in hours and hours of exactly planned movements with pocket lamps, leds and colour filters he extracted distinctive shapes from the dark &ndash and then photographed them with an immovably fixed camera by remote control shutter release. that way, hundreds of longtime exposures are produced every night. mai feels his way in the hall with his spotlights. later on, he merges up to 300 shots of individual areas and details in one total image.twelve such photos which reveal magically lit machines and plants for the printing, cutting, stamping, jogging and finishing of paper and board in the dark of the night of the factories are the motifs of the calendar &ldquospot on graphic arts 2015&rdquo. the photographic artist created it for printpromotion gmbh. since last week, this piece of art is a winner of the &ldquogregor international calendar award 2015&rdquo in bronze. the jury selected the calendar from nearly 1,000 entries submitted from all over europe, as well as japan and israel. the coveted award has been presented since 1950. its initiators are the graphische klub stuttgart, the ministry of finance and economics badenwürttemberg as well as verband druck und medien print and media association of badenwürttemberg.the calendar creates a fusion of analogue and digital worlds&ldquowe as jürgen mais client are, of course, very pleased that the jury shares our fascination with the photos he makes,&ldquo says dr. markus heering, the managing director of printpromotion gmbh and the vdma printing and paper technology association, adding that the photographer puts the very heart of this industry centre stage the machine. in his photographs, mai elevates it to a piece of art. the machines are the object of this art and, at the same time, the producing medium at a most sophisticated level. because the largeformat calendar consists of highquality prints which satisfy maximum visual and haptic demands.jürgen mais method to fuse hundreds of longtime exposures staged by hand into one single image by means of digital technology bridges the gap between the analogue handicraft and the digital world and thus uses the strengths of both worlds. convergence between the conventional and the digital technology is also an objective targeted by the member companies of the printing and paper technology association in their strategy roadmap &ldquoprint2030&ldquo. printing and paper technology must move forward in the direction of the changing digital world and thus make use of the expanded set of tools of the digital processes. mai demonstrates this with his openness to the option of image fusing and by raising his craft to a new level.in the calendar, printpromotion and the photographer from darmstadt show a way into the future of the industry. &ldquothe twelve motifs inspire fascination with the existing knowhow of our machinery and plant manufacturers. and, at the same time, they use digital technology to point out that all sorts of innovative highlights can be found in our factories if the depth of focus and illumination are correct when the viewer looks at them,&rdquo says heering.transformation allows further use of the motifs&ldquothis award is a wonderful confirmation of my work,&rdquo adds jürgen mai, and he thanks his team, graphic designer mark owen and all those companies that opened their halls for his photographic activities at night. &ldquopartly this could only be done because the 247 shift operation was interrupted as part of the maintenance activities,&rdquo he says. in such cases, the coordination efforts are even higher than for any other situation. &ldquotaking photographs definitely isnt all that needs to be done. for the motifs to be centre stage, we first of all have to rearrange a lot of things in the production halls,&rdquo the photographer reports, stressing that he is very pleased that these efforts have now found recognition at international level.perhaps there is a second &ldquocareer&rdquo in the pipeline for the awardwinning motifs. the resolution of 36 megapixels is sufficient for attractive largeformat posters that could be printed, cut and finished on the pictured machines. owen integrated the countdown to a possible date, i.e. the drupa 2016, into the calendar leafs. in addition, his design continues the machine motifs at an additional level through the enhancement of the already highquality 4c prints with different stamping and printing methods, the calendar communicates leaf by leaf what the printing and paper technology shown therein is able to achieve. and so, graphic design and the printed end product come full circle. &ldquoactually, the calendar does exactly what we stand for with our name printpromotion,&rdquo concludes heering, convinced that the best argument for modern printing and paper technology is no doubt the viewers fascination inspired by highquality and sophisticated looking prints.
