After studying at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1928-1929 with Oskar Schlemmer, Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky, Alfred Ehrhardt teaches painting, drawing and print-making according to the Bauhaus concept at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg. In 1933, the National Socialists regime reproaches him to spread a "cultural Bolshevist" style and dismisses him from the institution. Following that he goes into photography and film. He also moves to the North Sea shore near Cuxhaven where he starts his first photographic series. Subsequently, he photographs at the Courland Isthmus in 1934. Greatly influenced by his learning years at the Bauhaus, Ehrhardt is interested in the plasticity of shapes. Maritime landscapes, shells, corals or even crystals are as many subjects where the substance comes alive in his photographs.