Selections from Returning Home: Pieterlen, Switzerland, 2013

Excerpt from an exhibition catalog interview by Morgen Metzger, Rollins Museum of Art, Winter Park Florida, 2015: After 25 years in the United States years photographing the communities and culture of America, the Swiss native offers a twist, having returned to his hometown of Pieterlen, Switzerland and captured his childhood stomping grounds in subtle, black and white photographs with accompanying texts that have become his signature presentation style. As it turns out, the small town is strategically located midway on the Geneva to Zurich rail route. When Schreyer was growing up in Pieterlen, as many as 300 trains would pass through the town each day. Trains took him out of the small town of 4,000 people, as a young man travelling to school and to nearby “big cities” for adventure. Schreyer’s favorite image (Main Street with Retail Stores at Dusk) from the Returning Home series shows the path he walked and rode his bike to school. “Walking that path every day influenced the way I looked at the world. While it was always the same place, different seasons, construction and economic shifts brought changes. And that’s what I enjoy capturing in my photography to this day”.