The “Light painter” Uli Biggemann: a portrait

Photography – not snapping, but painting with light. A master of his craft is Uli Biggemann, the man behind www.moppetfoto.de. I was allowed to get to know him during a special experience – my first ride on an electric motorbike – and have been on the road with him ever since. A portrait.

You know the caves of the photo studios, mostly from the necessary shoot for passport and driving licence photos every now and then. You know the guys who nobody knows at weddings, christenings and inheritance celebrations and who walk around with three loudly clicking picture-catching machines hanging around their necks, always slightly bent over so as not to be so conspicuous – or because the cameras are so weighty. You know the heavy-duty workers with their metre-long white terror lenses who bend over the fence at sporting events waiting for that one, precious and unique shot.

And then
 comes Uli.

If you manage to follow him on his committed and skilfully moved motorcycle to the photo stop, you can watch fascinated as he packs a crazy conglomeration of tripods, flashes, light foils and cameras out of the tank and rear bags and spreads them around the area.

His zest for life and work literally beams at you, his face is one big smile. Like a dervish, he whirls back and forth between the equipment and the subject to be photographed. His instructions to us models are sharp and mischievous – it’s a lot of fun to stand in front of his camera, because everything happens so fast and there’s never a moment of boredom. Brilliant shooting entertainment!

Uli paints
 motorcycle photos.

From the very first picture that he holds up in front of your eyes, no, rather under your nose, the special composition of his photographs is fascinating: strong, rich, dark, massive. An amateur photographer like me, without much knowledge of aperture, exposure and flash, cannot easily explain the creation of such photos.

When Uli is not taking photographs or riding his motorbike, he makes music. That’s why he also masters the right moment behind the camera and sets it. The beat and speed are right, every shot is perfect. As with a drum solo, you constantly ask yourself, “How does he do that?”

Uli drives his models across the photo stage, operates his equipment like a drum kit, has his hands everywhere, every release of the camera is like a hit on the crash cymbal – and before you know it, the piece is over and it’s on to the next gig.

From time to time, Uli also takes to the air – with the unusual perspectives of his drone images, he puts the crown on every photo session.

Uli is
 an artist.

Colours, sharpness, noise and depth, light, shadows and perspectives – he combines everything in his photos to create unique images. Light painters, in other words. Snapshots with highly professional optics, pictures that remain in the memory like this one piece of music and that you want to look at again and again, have to look at.

Uli is
 a talent.

He picked up his first “real” camera at the end of 2010, and immediately the punk went off. But not a one-hit wonder – Uli can now point to a more than impressive list of references:

MOTORRAD	MOTORRAD NEWS	Motorradmagazin MO
Zero Motorcycles	Schweiz Tourismus	MOHO Motorrad Hotels
Alpentourer	RIDE ON Reise Motorrad	Motorradfreizeit
Motorradstrassen	LOUIS	BIKER BETTEN
Triumph Motorcycles	Let’s Bike together Motorrad Hotels	Rukka
X-Lite	Hepco & Becker
and many more ..

So anyone who is just a little bit into the motorbike world has surely seen one of the pictures by Uli, the light painter, somewhere.

Uli is
 teamplayer.

I have been working with Uli since my first ride on the BMW C evolution – since 2020 under the funny name “Moppetprosa”. Together we produce extraordinary motorcycle stories and have created a new, popular format in Europe’s biggest motorbike magazine with the “Passportrait”.

You can also book us as a documentation team for two-wheeled events. Uli has come to trust my driving skills on the motorbike, so dynamic driving shots are also possible.

Click! ->
 www.moppetfoto.de

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