Rolf Tietgens, who had been expected to take over the family shipping company Tietgens & Robertson, completed a commercial apprenticeship in Hamburg. He then made a trip to Chicago in the spring of 1933 to complete his commercial training with an American business partner. However, the trip and the new cultural experiences convinced Tietgens, on his return to Hamburg in 1934, to drop out of commercial training and earn a living as a photographer. In 1933, he visited the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago, in which Native Americans from reserves in the south-west put on performances for tourists. This tragic distortion of indigenous culture and way of life, presented for the entertainment of Western tourists, prompted Tietgens to explore indigenous cultures. He undertook a number of journeys to the reserves, in the course of which he took a large number of photographs that became the basis for his first photobook, Die Regentrommel (Der Graue Verlag). It was published in 1935 in Berlin and included examples of Native American poetry (Tietgens 1935). In 1936 the book was confiscated by the National Socialist regime.

In February 1935, Tietgens moved to Berlin and tried to start a career as a professional photographer. He may have studied photography at the Reimann School of Art and Design, founded by Albert Reimann and Hugo Häring in 1902. The school had created a new department for film and photography in 1928. During the 1930s the school was repeatedly the target of National Socialist attacks, as Albert Reimann came from a Jewish family. Reiman emigrated to London and opened in 1937 a branch of the Reiman School in London. During the 1930s Tietgens was able to publish a few of his photographs in the magazines Querschnitt and Photo-Graphik. In the February 1936 issue of Querschnitt, his “Indianer von morgen” (“Indians of tomorrow”) article was published, consisting of the first two chapters of his photobook Die Regentrommel (The Rain Drum). In April 1936 his article “April, wie es keiner kennt” (“April, as no one knows”) contained images of urban Berlin created in the aesthetics of the New Vision (Querschnitt, April 1936). While working on a new photobook project on Hamburg harbour, several pictures from his “Hamburger Hafenbilder” (“Pictures of the Port of Hamburg”) were reproduced in Photo-Graphik in October 1938. It was to be his last reportage before emigrating to the United States in December 1938 (Köhn 2011).

Tietgens was part of the network of the painter Eduard Bargheer and the photographer Herbert List, with the three men photographing one another and experimenting with the new abstract languages of photography that reflected the liberal avant-garde atmosphere of the 1920s and early 1930s in Germany and especially Hamburg and Berlin. With the Gestapo engaged in special commissions against homosexuals from the middle of 1936 at the latest, Tietgens, Bargheer and List were in danger of arrest and persecution, their lives at serious risk. While List first fled to Switzerland, then Italy and later Greece and Bargheer to Florence, Rolf Tietgens decided to emigrate to the U.S. at the end of December 1938 and arrived on 5 January 1939 in New York (Lorenz/Rosenkranz 2005).

Quite soon after his arrival in New York a second article appeared in Photo-Graphik, in the January 1939 issue. “Photographische Gestaltung” (“Photographic Design”) was accompanied by an introductory text and six images by Tietgens. In the article the 27-year-old émigré photographer explained that the camera was for him not only a medium for capturing objective reality but also for giving expression to an idea living within him; an idea that had been awakened in him by an appearance in the outside world (Tietgens 1939a). For the visualisation of his subjective experiences, Tietgens also made use of technical means of design and photographic experiments, such as interventions in the darkroom, retouching, montage, etc. Thus, Rolf Tietgens's work contained surrealistic as well as experimental elements. Tietgens also worked in the urban space, photographing streets and city series. One of the sites he photographed was Hamburg harbour, shortly before his emigration, while creating his Der Hafen photobook, which was published in May 1939 by Ellerman publishing house in Hamburg (Tietgens 1939b). The photobook's 90 photographs show a New Vision aesthetic: close-ups, graphic sequences, unusual perspectives, with the focus on industrial objects. Unable to complete the book himself because of his departure from Germany, Tietgens commissioned Eduard Bargheer to do so on his behalf. The book was to be published in May, 1939, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Port of Hamburg. It is not known how much Tietgens was aware of the positive reception of his photobook in New York. Today, it is sold for large sums of money in antiquarian bookshops.

Over the following years, Rolf Tietgens tried to realise several projects for photobooks and made contact with his old friend and publisher J.J. Augustin, who published the work in exile of several other émigré photographers, such as Horst P. Horst, George Hoyningen-Huene and Alexey Brodovitch. The details are not known, but none of Tietgens's projects were ever realised. One of these unfulfilled projects was a photo series on a firework display at the New York World’s Fair in 1939, which Tietgens titled "Dream of the Underworld". Tietgens had more success when it came to commissioned photographs and his images and articles on photographic theory were published in such magazines as U.S. Camera, Popular Photography and Minicam. In 1939, soon after his arrival in New York, he contributed photographs to the World’s Fair special issue of U.S. Camera and, in June 1939, his essay “Never tired of watching everything“ appeared alongside images he had taken in Germany (Tietgens 1939c; 1939d). Another essay for U.S. Camera was “Landscape Photography” (May 1942) and one of his images also appeared in the U.S. Camera annual of 1940 (Tietgens 1940; Tietgens 1942). As the World's Fair was an important cultural as well as political and economic event, other émigré photographers got commissions for the World's Fair or photographed the area on today's Flushing Meadows Park. Among them who were involved in commissions or made images of this event were Lilo Hess, Ruth Bernhard and Walter Sanders for Black Star photo agency, Carola Gregor, Andreas Feininger, Ernest Nash as well as many other émigré artists and intellectuals.

For Minicam magazine, which addressed professional as well as amateur photographers, Rolf Tietgens contributed with images and text in “What is Surrealism?” (July 1939), “Capture the ‘Life’ of the Object” (January 1940) and “Behold the Dreamers” (April 1945) (Tietgens 1939d; Tietgens 1940; Tietgens 1945). In all three articles his photographic position as a detailed observer of his environment, which he captured in subjective and unusual perspectives, detailed images, and surrealistic and experimental views, is clear. His contribution to the field of artistic surrealistic as well as experimental photography was also represented in his participation in the Captured Light. Experimental Photography exhibition held at the Norlyst Gallery in 1944. Besides Tietgens, other photographers represented were Josef Breitenbach, Erwin Blumenfeld, György Kepes and Lázló Moholy-Nagy. The group show was one of the first to present experimental photography in a gallery setting. It was a follow-up to the first, highly successful, Captured Light exhibition held in January of the same year with contributions from émigré photographers Andreas Feininger, Erwin Blumenfeld and Rolf Tietgens. Popular Photography covered the two Norlyst Gallery exhibitions in two articles: “Captured Light – Exhibition of the Month”, in September 1944 and “Why photographers experiment”, in February 1945.

Besides the Norlyst Gallery, Tietgens's work was also represented at the Image to Freedom photographic competition (and later on exhibition) held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1941. “The contest was experimental: photographers were challenged to interpret the abstract ideal of freedom in concrete terms of photography. ‘What, to you, most deeply signifies America?’ they were asked, ‘Can you compress it into a few photographic images?’ Some photographers chose to represent freedom by portraying in landscape the vast natural resources of the country.” (B.N. 1941, 14) Tietgens was one of the prize-winners (Anonymous 1941, 8). Other émigré prize-winners were the German born photographer Ruth Bernhard and the Russian born photographer Alexander Alland. Tietgens probably also took part in several other photographic exhibitions, like for example the ones held at Princeton Library in February/March 1939 and at the New School for Social Research in 1940, as well as the exhibition Photographing New York City at the Photo League Gallery in 1939, but unfortunately no more details are available (Köhn 2011, 280). In 1948 Rolt Tietgens was involved in the book project On My Way. Poetry and Essays 1912–1947 (Wittenborn Schulz, 1948) by the French artist Hans Arp, providing images of Arp's sculptures. Although Hans Arp did not emigrate to New York, he had several sojourns in the city during the 1940s and was in contact with the émigré dada and surrealistic scenes as well as with other American artists. His work was also represented in an exhibition held in 1949 at The Buchholz Gallery – Curt Valentin, an exile gallery located at 32 East 57th Street in Manhattan (Robertson 2019, 124).

Little information is available about where Rolf Tietgens lived in New York. His naturalisation papers state that in June 1939 he was living at 58 Barow Street in Greenwich Village and in 1942 in Midtown Manhattan at 29 West 58th Street, in the direct vicinity of the Norlyst Gallery, the Weyhe Gallery and Julien Levy Gallery. Other émigrés photographers, such as Ylla, Josef Breitenbach, Erwin Blumenfeld and Trude Fleischmann also lived nearby. Another address for Rolf Tietgens can be found on the back of a photograph of the Keith de Lellis Gallery. It is at 173 East 73rd Street in Yorkville, but it is not clear when Tietgens lived there. Yorkville was a borough where many German émigrés lived and where German cafés, restaurants and bars and a complete German infrastructure were to be found. Émigré photographers Charles Rado of the Rapho-Guillumette photo agency and Charles Leirens lived in this quarter. Andreas Feininger produced a photo series on Yorkville during the 1940s. It can be assumed that during the time Rolf Tietgens lived in Greenwich Village he was also in contact with the poet and writer Patricia Highsmith; a private photo series of the 21-year-old Highsmith, shot in 1942, can be found in the writer's archives in Bern. What kind of relationship the two had has been speculated on with great interest by Highsmith's biographers. Through Patricia Highsmith Tietgens became part of an open-minded gender fluid circle of other artists and photographers that included the German émigré Ruth Bernhard. Very little is currently known about these networks or about the lives of émigré lesbian and homosexual photographers and artists, where they met and whether they were also in contact with other émigré photographers like Rudy Burckhardt, who was a friend of the German born photographer Ellen Auerbach. Greenwich Village, at the end of the 1930s and 1940s, was an artistic and intellectual hub, where émigré photographers Lisette Model, Werner Wolff, Ruth Staudinger Rozaffy and André Kertész, the painter George Grosz and the American photographer Berniece Abbot all lived. Valeska Gert’s Beggar Bar and the exile publishing house Pantheon Books were also located in Greenwich Village. In 1942 Rolf Tietgens also spent some time in Santa Fé, probably on a commission for a photo series or on a private trip. Since the Presidential Proclamation of 1941 (Proclamation 2525 of 7, December 1941), emigrated photographers who did not hold American citizenship were classified as ‘enemy aliens’. They were not allowed to take photographs in public urban spaces for fear that the images “might reveal information about United States defenses“ (Schenderlein 2017, 109). Through articles in several newspapers it is known that in January 1942 Rolf Tietgens was arrested in Santa Fé as an ‘enemy alien’ and interned for several months in El Paso (Anonymous 1942, 1; United Press 1942, 4). During the mid-1940s Rolf Tietgens lived in a house on Long Island which was either his principal or his second home.

After the end of World War II, Rolf Tietgens was able to reestablish contact with his friends in Europe. In a letter to Eduard Bargheer and Paul Sacher he describes his situation as an émigré and photographer in New York, expressing disappointment at the lack of demand by publishers for artistic photobooks and for the fact that he was obliged to work as a commercial photographer. In 1952, he created the photo series  Times Square, which he planned to publish as a photobook. But the plan could only be realized posthumously by the gallery owner and executor of the estate Keith de Lellis, who published the photobook of photographs. During his lifetime, however, Tietgens was able to publish some of the photographs on a 15-page series in Coronet magazine (Tietgens 1954). The photobook contains more than 50 images, captured during private encounters in the square. Times Square was a centre of entertainment for New Yorkers and Tietgens captures the flavour of its nightlife in kaleidoscopic images. Between the garish neon lights and billboards, the camera focuses less on individuals and more on the anonymity of the crowd of which Tietgens finds himself a part. Tietgens also plays with the experimental and surrealistic aspects of the urban environment, with window reflections, the intense illumination, cropped-out details and the blurred effect of long exposures. Streets in New York are frequently very long and their nature can dramatically change from one end to the other, providing a fascinating visual encounter for a photographer. This was the case also for Fred Stein, who created his photobook 5th Avenue in 1947, and similarly for Fritz Henle, who created a series on 53rd Street.
Also in 1952, Rolf Tietgens contributed two images to Andreas Feininger’s book Advanced Photography, Methods and Conclusions (Prentice-Hall, 1952), in which he was cited as a pioneer of experimental photography (Feininger 1952, 184). The newspaper announcements for Feininger’s book were accompanied by an image by Tietgens (Desfor 1952, 19). The image is of a woman applying make-up and is comprised of a face and a pair of hands. It was described thus: Tietgens “combines trough double-printing, a face in positive with a pair of hands in negative and produces a startlingly three-dimensional and realistic effect. Because of their semi-transparent rendition, the hands actually seem to move back and forth, making up the lovely face. By rendering the hands in the dark form of the negative, Tietgens symbolizes nearness and introduces an element of darkness which, in contrast to the whiteness of the face, creates that startling impression of depth” (Feininger 1952, 192). Other émigré New York photographers and colleagues of the German emigrant Andreas Feininger represented in the book, were Erwin Blumenfeld, Fritz Goro (the husband of the photographer Carola Gregor) and Fritz Henle.

Today, images by Rolf Tietgens are part of the photograph collection at the Museum of Modern Art and the Keith de Lellis Gallery in New York.