New book presented

Journey to the vertical Ötztal water

Ernst Lorenzi and Hannah P. Scheiber also stood vertically in the Tower Museum.

(Bild: Lorenzi)

Photographer Ernst Lorenzi presents his new, almost 400-page book "Ötztal Water". In addition to breathtaking pictures, the text and a multimedia technique that brings the crystalline gold to life will surprise you.

It weighs three kilograms, is 392 pages long, comprises 18 chapters and is one thing it is not: superfluous. This new book is about liquids, about what half the world envies us for: water. More precisely, Ötztal water, vertical water.

Ernst Lorenzi, "colorful dog", mountaineer, World Cup press officer and first and foremost photographer, is the author of this printed journey to the vertical water streams of the Ötztal. Water streams of all shapes and sizes, from rivulets to streams, sparkling, crystalline, frozen, refreshing, gentle, but also destructive. 

The images created on this journey to the vertical streams of water capture a world that is changing abruptly.

Ernst Lorenzi

Bild: Lorenzi

The journey of a drop of water from the Ötztal glaciers to the Black Sea takes around six and a half years and Lorenzi worked on his book "Ötztaler Wasser - von den Fernern bis zum nahen Inn" for almost exactly the same amount of time. "At first it was supposed to be a photo book," he said in the fitting ambience of the glacier exhibition at the Oetz Tower Museum, "but today I am happy to have written it down, even though the photos naturally play the main role. I was out and about in all seasons, at all times of day and night and in all moods. The resulting images capture a world that changes and reinvents itself every day."

The author demonstrates the amazing technology of the app that turns pictures into moving images.

(Bild: Daum Hubert)

Images suddenly come to life
His "helpers" have invented a new digital way to create a multimedia book: The world-famous musician Franz Hackl accompanied the author to some of the waterfalls and played his own compositions there on his trumpet, which were recorded. If the reader downloads the free "Artivive" app onto their cell phone and holds it over a marked photo in the book, as with the QR code, the photo suddenly comes to life, the water begins to flow and Hackl's music can be heard. The application is of course also described in detail in the book.

Public book presentation on October 14
But back to the writing: The flowing, meandering water of the Ötztal, which plunges into the valley, serves people in mills and causes worries on glaciers, needed a coat.

This is what the well-known Ötztal artist Hannah Philomena Scheiber has done with the title page. She will also be present at the public book presentation on October 14 in the Aqua Dome.