My name is Dr. Franz-Josef Bock. I was born in 1958 in Bamenohl, in the municipality of Finnentrop in the Sauerland region, and grew up in Heggen. After finishing school, I studied chemistry and earned my doctorate in physical chemistry. During my professional career, I had little time for my creative passion—photography—which has, however, been a part of my life since my youth.
Now that I'm retired, I have more time and the freedom to dedicate myself to my passion. My images are an expression of my view of the world—small moments captured in light, form, and color.
I discovered my love for photography through the natural sciences. As a passionate amateur photographer, I am fascinated by capturing special moments in images. My focus is on photographically depicting the natural environment of our habitats.
My main areas of interest are landscape, macro, and nature photography. These genres continually reveal to me both the beauty and the transience of our planet, reminding me of how precious and worthy of protection our natural world is.
I began my photographic journey with analog photography. The switch to digital photography offered me so many advantages that I made the full transition a few years ago.
My first digital camera was the Olympus PEN E-P5. Unfortunately, I lost that camera in an accident during a hiking trip in California. I needed to buy a new one, and I decided to switch to full-frame. I gained a lot of valuable experience with the Sony A7 III. However, I eventually set it aside—in part because the menu navigation didn’t win me over in the long run.
Today, I’ve found the camera system that’s right for me and fully meets my expectations. I shoot with the Canon R5 and am thrilled by its performance in combination with the RF lenses. I use various RF lenses from the L-series for standard, telephoto, wide-angle, and macro photography, as well as the NiSi V7 filter holder with corresponding ND and GND filters.
A special thank goes to my dear wife Dorothe—for all the trips we’ve taken together and will hopefully take in the future, for her patience and understanding, and for her active support while I take photos under challenging conditions.
It’s not just the photos we take together, but also the many little moments that make these trips so special—the conversations, the laughter, and the shared discoveries. You make every trip unique, and without you, it would only be half as wonderful.
About the photos
On my website, I showcase photographs taken in various locations around the world. My travels have focused on—and continue to focus on—Canada, Alaska, Sri Lanka, and Namibia, as well as numerous European countries. However, I also travel regularly within Germany to capture unique scenes with my camera.
My photographs aim to showcase the richness of nature in all its aesthetic diversity, while at the same time heightening our awareness of transience in the tension between creation and decay.
On the one hand, they depict the realm immediately accessible to human experience—the mesocosm. On the other hand, they offer insights into structures and details that remain hidden from the naked eye and become visible only through technical aids such as macro lenses.
“Nature has presented humanity with two infinities: the immeasurably vast and the void. It has presented them not for us to comprehend, but to admire” (Blaise Pascal, 1623–1662).
In this spirit, I wish all viewers great joy in exploring my images—and perhaps some will be able to experience the beauty of nature in their own, deeply personal and sensual way.
Note
Some information on biological taxonomy as well as numerical values in my image descriptions are based on information from Wikipedia.