Born in Düsseldorf, 1945, Wenders studied medicine, philosophy and film at various stages before dropping out of university and moving to Paris to become a painter. It was there that he became fascinated with film, watching up to five movies a day at the local movie theatre. Surprisingly, he never studied photography but has taken photos since the age of six or seven, when his father showed him how.


With his trusty Plaubel Makina 67 and Fuji GX-617 cameras, Wenders chooses to travel alone without an assistant, insisting it’s when he takes his best pictures. "If I'm not alone, I don't take pictures. The basic thing I'm after, to abandon myself and immerse myself in the place, you can't do that with somebody else around."
From the late 60s to the mid-80s, Wenders took thousands of Polaroids and exhibited exactly 403 of them in London last year for Instant Stories (soon to open in Berlin). A few are a slightly blurred or not perfectly focused, but all are masterfully framed with his once-treasured SX-70 camera.



In an age of smartphones and filters, Wenders' photos are a welcome reminder of the sacred quality a photograph possesses, and the beauty of capturing a moment in its simplest form before it passes.

Wenders’ favourite book, Once, was first published in 1993. It contains forty-four autobiographical sketches or diaries from his trips around the world - searching for, or on the way to movie locations. Each Sketch begins “Once…” in the same way fairy tales begin “Once upon a time…”
"Once" I went to a screening of "Paris, Texas" with Harry Dean Stanton in a long limo. Even in the middle of New York, Harry was still Travis, sitting in the back of his brother's car and traveling through the desert in silence.

The book is full of great images and refreshingly humble accounts of times hanging out friends who happened to be stars, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Dennis Hopper, Akira Kurosawa, and Francis Coppola.


Time spent living, working and traveling across America is well documented, including several images that inspired Paris, Texas - one of the influences of the Stan Ray SS18 collection.




Once is both a travel and photo diary, stories with photos or photos with stories. Wenders makes a couple of interesting points when explaining his approach "Taking pictures is an act in two directions – forwards and backwards – every photo reflects both the subject and the attitude of the person that took it." And that "Taking a photo is an act in time, in which something is snapped out of its own time and transferred into a different kind of duration. The time span between the first picture and the next is where the story emerges."


Wim Wenders' photos often resemble paintings, with their distinctive warm analog feel. A film purist, he steers clear of digital photography or digital manipulation and montage. “I don’t want to bash it, it’s a different thing, but I don’t think it’s photography.”
Finding a moment or place that escapes the rest of us is Wenders' unique skill. He produces the most hauntingly beautiful scenes which are familiar but not as we’ve seen them before. Perfect cinematic scenes, seemingly frozen in time.

As he concludes the book “Once is not enough” I used to say as a kid. That seemed very plausible to me “once upon a time”. But when you take pictures, I learned, none of that applies. Then “once” is “once and for all.”
All photo credits: Wim Wenders