Elger Esser

He is influenced by Romantic paintings and 19th-century photography, and inspired by Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust and Guy de Maupassant. He seeks out beauty.

Esser's photographs of European rivers or river banks are large, quiet and deserted. Most of the time the horizon is low, as in the Dutch landscape paintings of the 17th century.

'Morgenland' is an old German term for the Middle East, meaning 'morning land'. For Morgenland (2017), he travelled to Lebanon, Israel and Egypt (including along the Nile to Luxor and Aswan) between 2004 and 2015. Using an 8×10 large format camera he made "luminous and unpeopled landscapes" with "glassy waters, still horizons[,] ancient ruins", shorelines, traditional feluccas and dahabeah sailing boats that "show off the area's mysticism, away from headlines about war and violence."

From 2006 to 2009 Esser was professor of photography at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design.

In 1986, he moved to Düsseldorf, where he worked as a commercial photographer until 1991. He attended the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1991 and 1997, where he studied under Bernd Becher. From 1996 he was a master class student [de] there.

Elger Esser (born 11 May 1967) is a German landscape photographer, living in Düsseldorf. "He is primarily associated with large-format images of European lowlands with his characteristic low horizon lines, pale luminous colours and vast skies".