2008 Star Island Photography Retreat
Thursday, September 11 through Sunday, September 14
Guest Artist: Ulrike Welsch

Puffins, photo by Ulrike Welsch

Ulrike Welsch, raised in postwar Germany, was trained as a druggist/chemist. Ulrike (also known as Uli) excelled in photography and didn’t know it would become her destiny. She arrived in the United States in the sixties and took a job selling cameras and spent her free time wandering the city of Boston in search of photographs. She was fascinated by her new surroundings and began to exhibit and sell her work. Uli received encouragement from her roommates and with better knowledge of the English language set out for a brief sojourn in Colorado. There she taught photography to children at a summer camp. Returning to Boston with a revised portfolio, she landed a staff position at the Boston Herald Traveler. Five years later she joined the Boston Globe, where the editors were already aware of her excellent human-interest images. Ulrike was the first woman photographer on the staff of both papers. Some of her most challenging assignments during those 15 years were: the Robert Kennedy funeral, Prison riots, Vietnam War demonstrations, the Papal visit of John Paul II, Boston Busing, and the Tall Ships Race from Bermuda, which was the most fun assignment as she reflects.
         During her time as photojournalist, she won numerous awards and in 1974 was named New England Press Photographer of the Year. Houghton Mifflin in 1977, second edition in 1981 by The Globe Pequot Press published her first collection of photographs THE WORLD I LOVE TO SEE.
         When on vacation Uli visited and photographed extensively in Latin America. During her learning years she photographed a children’s book KIDS OF COLOMBIA. Several years later she traveled from Venezuela to Paraguay for seven months following the theme ‘Rituals in the Andes’. Her experiences there made her reflect on life in general. She left the Boston Globe in the summer of 1981 and entered a career in freelancing. In the same year Uli traveled to Australia to participate in the book project A Day in the Life of Australia with one hundred world-renowned photographers. Yankee Books commissioned her to do FACES OF NEW ENGLAND.
         Her work either tells a story or reflects a mood. Originally her medium was in black white, and then she evolved to color and now to digital photography. Since finding her niche, and quite frequently traveling the globe on picture safaris, Uli always loves to return to her NEW ENGLAND home.
         Her search for beauty seems to continue. Presently she is completing two more solo books of her New England collection (all by Commonwealth Editions): SALEM at its Best and CAMBRIDGE at its Best will be published late summer of 2008.

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Ulrike Welsch's website: UlrikeWelschPhotos.com