User:MrBill3/Sandbox/Michael Schmidt (photographer)

Michael Schmidt (6 October 1945 – 24 May 2014) was a German photographer known for stark black and white photography presented in series creating a strong emotional effect.

Early life
Schmidt was born on the East side of Berlin, Germany. His family moved to West Berlin before the Berlin Wall was built. In his youth he worked as a police officer.

Career
When he started working as a freelance photographer he had no formal training but took courses and was certified as a photo-designer later. He spent four or more years on a single project. Schmidt believed that placing a series of contrasting images together added greatly to their emotional impact, expressing this theory as, "1 + 1 = 3". In 1987 he published a book, Waffernruhe (Cease-Fire), depicting Berlin after years of impact of the Cold War. It used images of nearly black streets, torn window screens, rusty girders and repeated photographs of the Berlin Wall. Pictures from this project and others were part of the fourth biennial celebration of Berlin. An exhibit in 1988 at the Museum of Modern Art was favorably reviewed by Andy Grundberg in The New York Times.

Schmidt won the 2014 Prix Pictet an international award for photography that communicates sustainability to a global audience. The award winning project, Lebenschmittel (Foodstuff) explored the global food industry.