German Prize for Science Photography awarded twice for IPP photo motifs

Prizes for photographers Volker Steger and Christan Lünig / motifs from Garching and Greifswald

An unusual view inside the large plasma vessel of ASDEX Upgrade at Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching has earned Munich-based photographer Volker Steger the 4,000 euro endowment going with the German Prize for Science Photography 2012 in the single-photo category. His projection of a spherical panorama shows the whole interior of the device in the mysterious gracefulness of a science fiction backdrop.

The German Prize for Science Photography is awarded by the Bild der Wissenschaft journal and Brendel Press Office in Düsseldorf. It is endowed with a total of 20,000 euros. The competition is directed at photographers who picture topical research and technology in appealing and unusual form. This year the jury chose four prizewinners out of 136 entries.

A special prize was also presented. It was awarded to photographer Christian Lünig from Dortmund. He convinced the jury with the high quality and unusual optics of his black-and-white photos of the interior of nuclear fusion devices: Textor at Jülich; Wendelstein 7-X at Greifswald – again at Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

The prizes will be presented on 24. November 2012 in Bremen, where the photos will be on display. The German Prize for Science Photography initiative is supported by the Fraunhofer Society, Bremen University, the BMW group and the journalist online service, supress-redaktion.de.