Alte Meister der Eisenbahn-Photographie: Burkhard Wollny

Burkhard Wollny was born in 1950 in Freiburg im Breisgau and grew up in Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg. At the age of ten, he regularly visited the Stuttgart-Rosenstein railway depot with his grandfather, where he photographed steam locomotives with his Kodak Instamatic. As a trained banker and later a business consultant, Wollny focused on his passion for photographing steam trains. For decades, he has been a prominent figure among railway photographers. The passionate railway enthusiast ventured into the then-existing steam locomotive paradise of East Germany in the mid-1970s. While being constantly monitored by the Stasi, he created an extensive documentation of steam operations and the operational environment in stations and depots. This was followed by photo safaris to Poland, organized by EK-Verlag, as well as photo excursions to the nearly original railway lines in the new federal states after the reunification of Germany. He professionalized his photography equipment very early on, placing great importance on the flexibility of his gear and the quality of his photos. Burkhard Wollny, who primarily used black-and-white film in the early decades, developed his own films. Over the years, he built a large archive of over 100,000 black-and-white photos and 46,000 color slides. Burkhard Wollny now lives a reclusive life in Göppingen. He has been publishing since the 1970s, with many books and magazine articles released by EK-Verlag. With the book 'Old Masters of Railway Photography,' we present his life's work. Many well-known, as well as numerous previously unknown images, provide insight into his archive, which he handed over years ago to the 'Eisenbahnstiftung Joachim Schmidt.'.