Jan Bölsche, born 1973, works as photographer and author in Berlin, Germany. His photos have been published in newspapers, magazines, travel guides, catalogs and on websites and CD covers. He specializes in capturing the Decisive Moment. Jan is “in-official member” (Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter) of Zentrale Intelligenz Agentur (ZIA).

Controlled by a defect gene, the cells of Jan Bölsche's retina started to slowly fade away in his early adolescence. In an still ongoing process, a growing blurry and nebulous spot in the center of his field of vision covers objects he tries to bring into focus. This medical condition is called "Stargardt's disease" or Juvenile Macula Degeneration (JMD). Since photoreceptors for the different base colors are not affected evenly, the sensation of color is quite different from what the rest of us sees. Due to the lack of high definition input, Jan's visual cortex concentrates more on the 'big picture', the coarse composition rather than on fine detail. Or as he puts it: "My eyes work more like a film camera from the 1930ies than like my digital SLR. Sometimes I am actually surprised with what it captured."

All photos © 2000-2010 by Jan Bölsche. All rights reserved.