Draft:Ralf Tooten

Submission declined on 26 May 2024 by Chaotic Enby (talk).

The content of this submission includes material that does not meet Wikipedia's minimum standard for inline citations. Please cite your sources using footnotes. For instructions on how to do this, please see Referencing for beginners. Thank you.

If you would like to continue working on the submission, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
If you have not resolved the issues listed above, your draft will be declined again and potentially deleted.
If you need extra help, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors.
Please do not remove reviewer comments or this notice until the submission is accepted.

Where to get help

If you need help editing or submitting your draft, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. These venues are only for help with editing and the submission process, not to get reviews.
If you need feedback on your draft, or if the review is taking a lot of time, you can try asking for help on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject. Some WikiProjects are more active than others so a speedy reply is not guaranteed.

How to improve a draft

Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia – a basic overview on how to edit Wikipedia.
Help:Wikitext – how to use the markup
Help:Referencing for beginners – how to include references
Wikipedia:Article development – how to develop your article
Wikipedia:Writing better articles – how to improve your article
Wikipedia:Verifiability – make sure your article includes reliable third-party sources

You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article.

Improving your odds of a speedy review

To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags.

Add tags to your draft

Editor resources

Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs

Declined by Chaotic Enby 5 months ago. Last edited by Chaotic Enby 5 months ago. Reviewer: Inform author.

Resubmit

Please note that if the issues are not fixed, the draft will be declined again.

Ralf Tooten (born June 23, 1958) is a German photographer based in Bangkok. Renowned film director Volker Schlöndorff once remarked about his movie "The Tin Drum": "Ralf has not only captured typical scenes, he has taken some of the most exquisite scene photographs for my movie."

Early Life [Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]

Ralf Tooten was born in Homberg, Lower Rhine, to Anneliese (née Flettner) and Karl Tooten. He attended the Adolf Kolping Berufskollegin Kerpem-Horrem near Cologne from 1973 to 1975. Expressing an early interest in photography, Tooten embarked on formal training under the tutelage of Master photographer Clemens Hartzenbusch and his wife Hildegard Lotz who specialized in portraiture, in Junkersdorf from 1975 to 1978.

First Achievements:

Tooten's career took off when he was invited to the set of the film "The Tin Drum" in 1979, based on the award-winning novel by Günter Grass. Director Volker Schlöndorff enlisted him as a scene photographer, and his images were soon featured in publications such as the city magazine Tip and the book adaptation of "Die Blechtrommel." The film went on to win the Palme d’Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980.

Tooten continued his collaboration with notable filmmakers, including Sisters or the Balance of Happiness and Marianne and Juliane both by Margarethe von Trotta which received the Golden Lion at the 1981 Venice Film Festival.

Work [Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]

In 2002, Tooten gained international acclaim with the publication of his first coffee table book, "Eyes of Wisdom," a collection of intimate portraits featuring religious leaders. This work earned him the prestigious Hasselblad Master Award 2003 in Gothenborg in Sweden.

Choosing Bangkok as his permanent home and workplace in 2003, Tooten immersed himself in Asian culture. His book "The Eyes of Wisdom" was later turned into an exhibition at the National Gallery in Bangkok in collaboration with the Goethe Institut.

Together with the German author, journalist and talk show host Roger Willemsen Tooten worked on the book "Bangkok Noir". Enthralled by the exotic aesthetics of the Asian megalopolis, he spent two years documenting the city’s after-dark activities. The book was published in 2009 and became a bestseller. Under the curation of former Gallery Ver director Josef Ng, it was adapted into a multimedia exhibition at the National Gallery in 2011.

Tooten's artistic endeavors expanded to include social awareness campaigns, such as his 2011 project The Naked Truth, highlighting emotional struggles faced by individuals with psoriasis, initiated by Pfizer Inc. and photographed on the Canary Islands, in Spain and Costa Rica. It was exhibited throughout Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America.

In 2013, Tooten’s installation “R.C.A.“ (Ratchburi Construction Workers Open Air), a series of gigantic portraits of Thai construction workers was displayed in numerous public spaces around Ratchaburi, transforming the small town in central Thailand into an open-air gallery. It was curated by Thai contemporary artist Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch.

His series "Ocean Noir", showcasing ultra-low light oceanic landscapes, debuted in Bangkok in 2016.

Ralf Tooten was chosen as one of the featured artists for the inaugural Bangkok Art Biennale 2018/2019. Under the direction of Artistic Director Prof. Dr. Apinan Poshyananda and his curator team, Tooten exhibited and screened his Worker Portrait photographs across various venues throughout Bangkok for a duration of four months.

In 2019 and 2020, Tooten's artworks were featured in a group exhibition at the Palazzo Merati in Venice, Italy, as well as at the BAB Box, the gallery of the Bangkok Art Biennale. Additionally, in 2021, Tooten participated in "Healing Waters," a curated exhibition by Luckana Kunavichayanont, alongside artists Tul Hirunyalawaan (President of the Royal Photographic Society of Thailand) and Chaiyapruek Chalermpornpanit, held at the Amanpuri Gallery in Phuket, Thailand.

Since 2007, Ralf Tooten and his team dedicated their professional endeavors to architecture and hospitality photography, focusing on esteemed hotel and resort brands throughout Asia and the Oceania region.