I’ll admit it: I thought Siegen was ugly.

After moving here in 2006 from the picture-postcard perfection of Passau I asked myself why I had come to this concrete dump. A collection of grey, industrial buildings with only a few glimpses of beauty to break the bleakness.

This began to change during Corona,

In the years leading up to the pandemic I barely left the town centre. Unable to work my regular job in the event industry, I spent a miserable 18 months delivering packets in a yellow van. The only things which made my days bearable were the lovely people I met and, surprisingly, the discovery that Siegen is actually much prettier and interesting than I originally thought.

An internet image search of Siegen will provide photos of the usual suspects: the parks of the Oberstadt, the Nickolai church, and the densely forested surrounding areas. That is about all Google has to offer, Surely there must be more to catch the eye?

Driving around town, going to parts I would normally have no reason to visit, opened my eyes to the unseen or, perhaps more accurately, unnoticed beauty and strangeness hiding in the open.

Rays of sunlight illuminated forgotten corners bringing out dream-like colours. Graffiti brightened neglected, unused buildings. “Boring” objects were made interesting by their unusual locations. I wondered why children’s shoes were discarded along with an electric carving knife and asked myself who met on ripped-out car seats behind warehouses and what they did.

I saw the undersides of vehicles on trailers and a trailer left abandoned for so long that trees now snake their way through the rusty metal. And the rust itself! What a beautiful colour appreciated only in the splendour of an autumn forest. Did the residents of homes I visited also appreciate the shapes formed by the light and shadows in the stairwells where I would leave their packets?

The city contains endless surprises which I was (and am) compelled to photograph, documenting the beauty and peculiarities of Siegen, unloved, unseen and unnoticed by the majority of residents and visitors alike.

I am not a camera nerd obsessed with the latest lenses and megapixel count but I know how to blur the background or take a time-lapse photo of a waterfall. However, this holds little interest for me. Stand in front of something traditionally seen as beautiful and, even with basic knowledge, the subject will appear beautiful in the finished photo. Some portrait or landscape photographers are better than others. They take sharper photos with more depth and character.

I prefer to create beautiful images of things and places which are not in the sights and visions of most photographers.

These photographs form a collection of my “dusted diamonds”. You may, if familiar with Siegen, recognise many places. My hope is that you will also begin to discover the little gems which changed my mind about Siegen and infected my general photographic style. Perfect photos of coffee placed next to a cute cactus are not on my resume.

Even if your idea of what is beautiful or interesting is different to mine, you may at least start to look at your surroundings with more curious eyes.

Enjoy,

Neil