Obituary: Hansgert Lambers

When his major monograph Verweilter Augenblick/Lingering Moment (Fotohof edition, vol. 340) appeared two years ago, complementing an exhibition at the Haus am Kleistpark in Berlin, the Berlin photographer, who was born in 1937, was able to look back over an impressive body of work spanning seven decades. The selection clearly demonstrated his feel for the poetry of the mundane and the decisive moment – very much in the spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson. That moment, which Lambers described as a “lingering moment”, animates the viewer to look closely at the photographs, even decades after they were taken.

He captured people's everyday lives with the Leica M3 he acquired back in 1956, an M4 and his two M6 cameras with wide-angle lenses, with which he photographed until very recently. Always in black and white. Even though he did photograph a lot of architecture and still lifes, it was street photography with an explicitly humanistic view, which was much closer to his heart. He took pictures not only in his home town of Berlin, but also when travelling to Western European cities, and, particularly intensely, in Eastern Europe. This was largely as a result of his profession as an industrial engineer, working for IBM from the mid-sixties after he graduated from TU Berlin, until his retirement. He supervised the installation of mainframe computer systems in the GDR, Poland and the CSSR. In addition to his day job, he found time to go on photographic outings. He always saw himself as a passionate amateur – in the best sense of the word.

Preferring to promote other photographers, he modestly tended to keep his own work in the background. In 1986, he founded the ex pose publishing house “for contemporary author photography”. Many connoisseurs on the photography scene also knew his as a reviewer of photo books. Consequently, with the publication of his major photo book in 2022, it was all the more pleasantly surprising to get to know him as a great photographer. Lingering Moments was, in turn, honoured with the German Photo Book Award Gold.

The sensitive, friendly and often humorous photographs of the people he portrayed, bear witness to much of Lambers’ character. He passed away in Berlin on June 23, after a long illness.