Carl Bellingrodt (1897–1971) was one of the best-known German railway photographers of the 20th century and co-founder of the Federal Association of German Railway Friends () or BDEF. He worked professionally as a police officer, later switching to financial management.

Life and works as a photographer

Bellingrodt was born on 7 April 1897 in Cologne, but began taking photographs even before the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. His first surviving photograph was of the German emperor, Kaiser

Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until Abdication of Wilhelm II, his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as th ...

Very soon he specialised in

landscape photography Landscape photography (often shortened to landscape photos) captures the world's outdoor spaces, sometimes vast and unending and other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on human-ma ...

and especially railway photography. In the course of his work he took more than 30,000 photographs of

locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

s and

train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

s. His collection suffered heavy losses as the result of a fire and a water pipe leak. Bellingrodt is known not just for his systematically compiled photographs of individual

s and locomotive classes using specific, standard perspectives. Especially loved by railway fans and preferred by Bellingrodt are his photographs of trains in striking country settings, at stations or in station yards. The majority of his shots were taken in

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

;

colour photograph Color photography (also spelled as colour photography in Commonwealth English) is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channe ...

s by Bellingrodt are rarer. His photographic method, in which the train is crossing the picture diagonally was a style emulated by other railway photographers. Even before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Bellingrodt sold photographs to publishing houses. These often acted as pictures for postcards. Bellingrodt also worked as a slide photographer for the

Deutsche Reichsbahn The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' (), also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the Weimar Republic, German national Rail transport, railway system created after th ...

. After Bellingrodt's death on 24 September 1971 in

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...

, his archive was extended for several years by his wife until she eventually sold it in 1981 to the Eisenbahn-Kurier magazine. Today the majority of his photographic works, including an almost complete collection of photographs, are in private ownership.

Importance today

Picture books and other publications with his photographs are still avidly purchased today and time and again re-published. The society co-founded by him, the BDEF, is today the largest German association for railway fans with over 12,000 members.

Literature

* Klaus D. Holzborn / Carl Bellingrodt: ''Dampflokomotiven/Normalspur''. Alba Buchverlag, Düsseldorf (1971) 4th edition. * Müller, Siegfried: ''Nachruf: Im September 1971 starb Carl Bellingrodt''. in: Eisenbahn-Kurier 9/1981, p. 6–17 *''Eisenbahnromantik am Rhein – unterwegs mit Carl Bellingrodt''. EK-Verlag, Freiburg (2006) *''Eisenbahnraritäten in Farbe – Aus dem Archiv Carl Bellingrodt 1933 bis 1960''. EK-Verlag, Freiburg (2001) *''Eisenbahnreise mit Carl Bellingrodt'' EK-Verlag, Freiburg (2007) *''Ein Leben für die Eisenbahn-Photographie – Carl Bellingrodt und sein berühmtes Lokomotivbild-Archiv''. EK-Verlag, Freiburg (2004) *''Eisenbahn-Dampflokomotiven – Aus dem berühmten Bildarchiv von Carl Bellingrodt''. EK-Verlag, Freiburg (2001) * Brinker, Helmut / Ursula Arlowski / Alfred B. Gottwaldt: ''Meisterfotos aus der großen Eisenbahnzeit − das Lebenswerk von Carl Bellingrodt, dem Altmeister der Eisenbahn-Fotografie.'' GeraMond, München (2004) * Brinker, Helmut: ''Carl Bellingrodt - Das fotografische Werk.'' DGEG-Medien, Hövelhof (2011)

External links

*
Carl Bellingrodt: Ein Leben für die Lokomotive
in ''Westdeutsche Zeitung'' dated 30 September 2011 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bellingrodt, Carl 1897 births 1971 deaths 20th-century German publishers (people) Rail transport photographers Photographers from Cologne Artists from Wuppertal