About me – Lars-Henrik Roth
Photohiking: What It Is
I leave the house early. Often before five, before daylight has settled in.
My destination is a place I know, or want to get to know. I walk. Not to arrive, but to perceive. The rhythm of walking changes the way I look: calmer, less fixed on an outcome.
At some point along the way, I decide on an image. Not because the motif is complete, but because the moment carries something that will not return. Light, stillness, a movement. Something that reveals itself when you walk long enough and stay open to what shows itself.
Later, I write. The text does not revolve around the walk — it carries it further. It is not an explanation of the image, but its own voice for the same moment.
Image and text together are the work.
What emerges from this, I call Photohiking.
Walking – Seeing – Telling
Walking
Walking is not preparation. It is the first part of the work.
A steady pace changes perception: the gaze becomes calmer, awareness widens. Much only reveals itself when you walk. The path is not a means to an end — it is part of the work itself.
Seeing
Seeing here does not mean finding a subject and capturing it.
It means remaining open to what shows itself. No expectations to meet, no image prepared in advance. The camera follows perception — not the other way around. What emerges is an image that holds what revealed itself in that moment.
Telling
After the walk, the text begins. Not as description, not as explanation — but as an independent engagement with what took shape along the way.
Image and text stand side by side as equals. They approach the same moment from two directions. Together they carry what neither of them can fully say on its own.
The works take shape in series. Seven images, one essay — a self-contained work. The series is the natural form of this method: it gives the individual image a context, and the moment a duration.
Lars-Henrik Roth: The Person Behind It
I have been photographing since I was fifteen. Not as a hobby that happened to begin at some point, but because images early on became a language I wanted to understand.
Seeing came first. Walking came later. Telling was always there — but for a long time without a public place. The three existed independently for decades. Professional responsibility, leadership, the ordinary weight of a long working life — all of that did not cut the artistic thread, but it pushed it aside for a long time.
Returning to photographic work was not the decision to begin a new chapter. It was a continuation — with greater clarity about what matters.
Wanderspezi – the Photohikers is the place where these three lines come together. The landscapes I work in are those of western Germany: the Eifel, the Moselle, the Rhine, the Bergisches Land. What lies far away interests me less than what reveals itself when you truly look.
How I Work
A tour is not an outing. It is a concentrated working process: I set out with an intention, but without a fixed result. What emerges is partly decided by the landscape itself.
I work in series. A series consists of seven images made on a single walk. The path remains a narrative unity. Not every walk carries a series. The rhythm is slow, the selection strict.
I usually carry two cameras. Not out of commitment to any particular system, but because fleeting light does not wait for lens changes. The gear follows the light and the path — not the other way around.
Responsibility, Attitude, and Where the Work Lives
Photography in nature carries responsibility. I am a member of the German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) and of Nature First – The Alliance for Responsible Nature Photography. Both stand for an approach to landscape that does not consume what it shows. This is not something added to the photographic work. It is its precondition.
The series is published on Flickr, selected images are available as fine art prints on Picfair, and essays, walks, and photographic reflections appear on this Journal.