Rudolf Keller Photography, 1925 – 1942
My
grandfather Rudolf Keller was born into an upper class family in Saint
Petersburg, Russia in 1887 and has a fairly interesting life story. His
childhood years were still in the “Good Old Times”
of the Tsarist Empire,
when the upheavals of the 20th century were
still many years away.
Rudolf
moved to the US in 1917, found a wife and became father of a daughter
in 1919 (already
back in Riga). His wife died in 1924 and the young widower married
again in 1926
– my grandmother.
In
late 1939
/ early 1940 the Keller family was resettled to Poland (at the time
occupied by
the German Reich), like almost all of the German population in the
Baltic states.
Rudolf was drafted into the German army, where he did not get along
well. He
died of a heart attack in 1942 at the age of just 55.
Rudolf’s
professional life wasn’t all roses. After two revolutions
(1905 and 1917) the
family wealth was gone, as was the upper class status of the German
minority in
Russia as such, now the Soviet Union.
Even
the -
now independent – Baltic states started to challenge the
positions the Germans
held in their societies.
In the early Thirties, Rudolf was a operating manager in a
plywood
factory (a happy time, reportedly), until the company became insolvent.
Later
he owned a small photo store, which was much less lucrative.
Rudolf
Keller as a Photographer
Photography
also was one of his hobbies, obviously. Without hurting him, I think it
can be
said that he was not the greatest photographer of all. But even less
ingenious
shooters score every now and then…
The technical side of photography must also have been of interest to him, as can be gathered by the number of different cameras he used over the years, at least seven, with various formats, also glass plates and stereo slides. I am unable to attribute the glass plates to particular cameras, the stereos should be from a Voigtlaender. And I know he has owned a 6x6 Rolleiflex at one point in time as well as a Robot (24x24mm on 35mm film). Most of the 35mm negatives were taken with a Leica III.
All
these
negatives have found their way through the war and post war turmoil. My
father
has later stored them in a drawer for decades.
The
images
show a peculiar mix of subjects. There are no pictures from before
1925, so
none from his time in the US, unfortunately. I guess Rudolf has only
started
taking pictures later, or the glass plates were lost. Rudolf was not
all too careful
adjusting his cameras, nor did he pay ultimate attention to the
composition.
His favorite subjects were his family, Riga and the Baltic landscape.
Family
Riga
Rudolf
has taken
lots of pictures of his adopted home town Riga. Some houses he has shot
so often,
there must be a reason?
How
empty
the streets were, and the architecture undestroyed! Looking at these
pictures,
I guess I live in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Plywood
factory
This
surely
looks like an interesting place to work and the wooden villa that the
Keller
family occupied, must have been a fantastic place to live, plus the
surrounding
area serving as a huge adventure playground.
Turbulent
Times
Actually,
times were less idyllic than it appears on most of the pictures. Only
some show
people in uniforms, and only very few have swastikas on them.
One of the most interesting pictures is that of the young lady newsagent. From the newspaper headline it can be dated to end August 1939, very few days before World War II outbreak.
Country
Life
These pictures show how close to nature the life of the Kellers was. Sure, it must have been cold and dark in winter, but it appears they have spent most of the time outdoors during the rest of the year.
Baltic Sea
Coast
The
fishermen, the sea, the pines and the sand – how nice!
What makes
these pictures valuable
Rudolf
Keller may have not been much than a hobby photographer but I see high
value in
his pictures, in that they illustrate their time by showing ordinary
things in
a lively way.
Thanks for that, Rudolf!
