„It’s nice to be important -but it’s more important to be nice and polite“
I was very lucky, 20 years with international photographers for international productions (advertisements and editorial content) in which I was in charge of organizing, planning, conceptualizing and managing while always aiming to make two sides happy – the creator as well as the user of the photograph.
There are two hearts beating in my chest, one for the creator (author of the photograph) and one for the user (production/publishing house and agencies/right management).
It’s because I studied photography; and I got to learn from the best in the industry during my more than 20 years of production experience.
In both rolls (as producer and/or photographer) I am always well aware of the other side and the connected necessities.
This means that no briefing is too complex and no circumstances on set are unknown to me.
For instance cars that aren’t working, landscapes that do exist but do not offer any possibilities to keep secrets, topics that are so abstract that a scientist would need 20 pages to describe them, moods that should be created at the push of a button, and rain that isn’t allowed to fall.
My list of mastered challenges is almost endless…
Which is why you can profit from my international experience in aspecial way: as a photographer and as an executive producer.
Thoughts on photography:
In a time in which a photo only seems current for 3 to 10 seconds, a picture will be worth a lot because it must leave a deep experience.
An experience is an event. An event/happening with a start, middle and an end. An experience/event/happening leaves an in-erasable memory. Experiences are complete, total, all-encompassing, sustainable and emotional. An experience will always be able to be reproduced.
“Creation of value”
is a direct function of the offered quality of experience for every company, no matter big or small.
Thoughts on photography:
A picture is taken out of context in social media feeds and stories,
it doesn’t have a canvas, it’s pushed into a corset by a standard template and has to use its own strength to cross barriers to be seen and to be remembered, otherwise it’s (almost) lost forever.
Visual content is omnipresent in social networks.
The border between professional and private creators has vanished.Technology makes it possible for everyone to leave an impression with their personal profiles.
Which is great.
The borders are blurred, what we don’t see on the internet simply doesn’t exist.
Is photography experiencing a crisis?
In my opinion photography is currently at its peak.
So many companies, people, organizations have to present themselves on their channels and for that they need content which they can present. Every damn day at every damn time.
Long live the picture, the photography, the animation, the video!
The more precisely, uniquely, skillfully the content is conceptualized, the more benefit everyone can draw from the picture. The creator, since they can produce a whole array of pictures, who didn’t create a one-hit wonder. The user, since they can leave a precise, unique impression of themself. And the consumer, since they know that they are caught by the right surrounding, brand, world.
My inspiration as a photographer or as a photo producer stems from great role models in the arts, film, fashion and in photography as such.
A list of artists of whom I am a fan and whose work I admire:
August Sander I Diane Arbus I Nan Goldin I Bernd und Hilla Becher I Annie Leibovitz I James Nachtwey I Tim Walker I Man Ray I Karl Blossfeldt I Giorgia O’Keefe I Frieda Kahlo I Alexander McQueen I Vivienne Westwood I Sebastiao Salgado I Gerhard Richter I Francis Bacon I Yusuf Karsh I Tobbie Giddio I Lotte Laserstein I Paul Outerbridge I Robert Polidori I Quentin Tarantino I Jim Jarmusch I Wim Wenders I Guy Ritchie I Pedro Almadovar