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Foundation Project Speleology

Negotiations with the Innsbruck Faculty of Geosciences

Christoph Spötl and Susanne Paech

The Foundation Herbert W. Franke visited Christoph Spötl, Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences and Atmospheric Research at the University of Innsbruck. He was also president of the Austrian Cave Association VÖH for many years. Susanne Paech met this hotspot of sinter research to discuss the possibilities of cooperation with regard to Franke’s legacy as a speleologist and sinter researcher.

Franke not only has to show scientific achievements for the determination of the age of dripstones, but also enriched cave photography with creative photo methods. He began this as a student shortly after World War II. Cave photography was an important signpost in his artistic career, as he was immediately fascinated not only by the beauty of the sinter structures, but also by the darkness in which the stalactites lay hidden underground. Franke wanted to bring the invisible into the reality of human perception and reveal its aesthetic dimension – with the help of apparatuses and machines. One of his first non-fiction books was entitled “Where no eye can see” and describes the fascination of the new fields of vision made possible by machines. The photographed cave structures were the beginning of Franke’s considerations to get closer to the bottom of the phenomenon of aesthetic structures in nature as well as in art using scientific methods in the 1960s. Here are three early photographic examples of his photographic art.

Sinter in caves: photographic structure
Dry crack of paint: micro photography
Plastic foil: macro photography