About...

About LuminousArts Photography

This site serves primarily as a showcase for my images. The focus is clearly on nature photography, especially landscapes and animals. Occasionally, however, dance performances and concerts slip into my viewfinder. I also succumb to the lure of street photography and lost places from time to time.

After running LuminousArts as a hobby project for a long time, I have now taken the step to run photography (or trading with photo products) as a small business. The emphasis here is on "small", because it is still more important to me to take photos than to market the results. So it remains to be seen if my photography will ever be financially rewarding.

About the person behind the site

Wilderness self-portrait in the morning

LuminousArts Photography is a one man show and that one man is me. My name is Marc Gerecke and I run this site with everything that goes with it, from photography and filming to web design. 

I can't remember exactly when I started taking pictures. But my more intensive involvement with photography began when I was given my father's SLR camera for my confirmation. That was more than 30 years ago. In the meantime, my photographic focus has changed from time to time and, of course, so has the equipment (the SLR that started it all is still in the display case).

Through my involvement with nature photography, conservation has also become more important to me and I try to combine the two. Obviously this isn't always easy, but it's also very important! In any case, at the beginning of 2018 I (re)founded the working group "Nature Photography" at the BUND (Friends of the Earth, Germany) regional group in Hannover, after it had died out years before. I gave up the leadership of this working group after two years due to time constraints, but I am still very active in the group. The time that was freed up when I gave up the leadership of the working group was immediately (more than completely) absorbed by my volunteer work for Greenpeace Hannover.

Affiliation

Nature First

Nature First
In addition to my involvement in local environmental and conservation groups, I am a member of Nature First, a worldwide organization of nature photographers who pledge to follow certain rules to protect nature and put nature before photography. One of the ways I do this is by learning enough about my subject beforehand so that I can minimize the disruptive influence of photography. It also means thinking carefully about the consequences of posting photos with location information on social networks - this is not inherently "bad," of course, but in certain cases it can lead to the location being made public.
In some cases, it can lead to the location being overrun and nature at that location being damaged. The Nature First principles are (https://naturefirst.org/en/):

  • Prioritize the well-being of nature over photography.

  • Educate yourself about the places you photograph.
  • Reflect on the possible impact of your actions.
  • Use discretion if sharing locations.
  • Know and follow rules and regulations.
  • Always follow Leave No Trace principles and strive to leave places better than you found them.
  • Actively promote and educate others about these principles.

GDT - German Society for Nature Photography

I have been a supporting member of the German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) since December 2019, and was accepted as a full member in February 2020.

Supporting membership is open to every nature photographer. To become a full member, you must apply with a portfolio of 20 images. A jury evaluates this selection and then either admits the applicant to the coveted full membership or provides feedback and suggestions for improvement on the submitted images.

The GDT itself states its goals as follows (https://www.gdtfoto.de/seiten/who-is-the-gdt.html):

The GDT demands and supports nature photography that embraces authenticity, true conservation and artistic quality to the same degree.

This is by no means a contradiction but a fertile triad as the GDT's members show in their photographs and in their striving for quality, joint learning and the ambition to improve as a photographer as well as a conservationist.

To this end, it organizes an annual festival and several photo competitions.