For the new magazine “Viva“, another line extension of the “Stern”, I visited three people who have, at some point in their lives, started a second career.
Urte Schönfeld taught indian woman how to knit, Jörg Strempel builds models of ships in museum-quality, and Agnes Flügel turned from journalist to beekeeper.
You can buy Agnes’ delicious honey here.
The eleventh part of National Geographic Deutschland’s series “Das gute Beispiel” (the good example) introduces the organization Viva con Agua and its founder, ex-football pro, Benjamin Adrion.
You can read the article here.
For last weeks cover story of “Stern” magazine on cosmetic surgery, I took some pure shots of members of their editorial staff. To illustrate what could be done to shave off a few years, the portraits were then digitally ‘optimised’.
People out there! Save yourself the hassle, you look good as you are.
For the German weekly “Der Freitag” I took one of the rare trips into my neighbourhood to take a portrait of singer Marie Biermann. Not being a great fan of tags, I for once decided to use them as a backdrop. Not only are they all around the “hood”, but in this case I thought them to be an adequate symbol for the assets and drawbacks of names. Marie is the daughter of the famous songwriter Wolf Biermann.
Every now and then a well-meaning picture editor remembers that I spent 20 years photographing dolls for the German doll manufacturer “Annette Himstedt”. Since Annette closed down her company my expertise in handling small things lies sadly dormant for most of the time. That’s why I was delighted when Men’s Health called me to photograph their Woman-Survival-Guide.
The magazine cunningly identified all four female riders of the apocalypse -
girlfriend, colleague, mother and best friend – and gave advice on how to survive their devilishness.
My job was to translate typical troubles with the other sex into easily recognizable visuals, for those poor downtrodden male magazine readers.
To get the right atmosphere, I decided to use real sets and limit the amount of post production to an absolute minimum. Thanks to set builder Nils Emde for creating these modern day pillories. Here you see the lead pictures of the series:
The other week I had a very charming visitor in my studio. A wild grey goose.
It has now appeared on the cover of the magazine “Beef”.
I do feel slightly guilty for using this beauty as a proxy for a christmas roast, but animal lovers and vegetarians don’t need to fret. This guy didn’t end up in the oven.
In 2006 the Greenpeace Magazine started the column “Tu Was!” (Do Something!),
a series with tips on “how to create a better world”. 77 of them, from which I
photographed 24, have now been made into book. It has just been released, is a lot of
fun and a perfect present.
You can order HERE
In 2006 startete das Greenpeace Magazin mit der Kolumne “Tu Was!”, einer Serie mit “Denkanstößen für eine Bessere Welt”. 77 dieser Tipps, von denen ich 24 fotografiert habe, gibt es jetzt als Buch. Ein großer Spaß und ein perfektes Geschenk.
Bestellen kann man es HIER
I am happy about a ten page portfolio of my work published in the new issue of the German photo magazine “Digit!”. The 4-2011 edition puts a special focus on editorial photography. Next to some of my images there is also an enlightening text by Peter Schuffelen and a short interview.
You can see an excerpt HERE but for the real thing go to the newsagent and buy it!
By invitation of the local government of Shanghai I was just invited to contribute to the book and exhibition project: Shanghai in the Eyes of World Photographers.
To complete the magnificent seven, there were also Claudio Bonoldi from Milan, Feco Imperio Hamburger from Sao Paulo, Elisabeth Montagnier from Marseille, Janolof Fritze from Gothenburg, Michael Rauner from San Francisco, and Nii Takao from Nagasaki – all sister cities of Shanghai.
Our Chinese hosts provided each of us with a guide (a local photographer from the Shanghai Photographers Association) and a translator, to tackle the ambitious schedule that was layed out by the organizers.
Not only did we extensively criss cross the huge metropolis of Shanghai, but we also found out why it is probably going to be the next New York, why big tables should be round and that you can eat almost everything without any serious side effects.
Because of our glorious efforts it was of course inevitable, that the Chinese media tracked us down eventually with around 30 photographers and a couple of film teams.
A true “red carpet moment”. We made big news!
I especially thank my translator Zhuang Yadong (Mike), who not only switched between Shanghainese, Mandarin, German and English, to bridge the occaisonal linguistic and cultural difference, but was also patient enough to find me cool new suede shoes. Big thanks also to the organizers Chen Qiwei, Sun Weimin, Pengfei Li, Stephanie Tang, Lesley, Jiayi Zhu and my guide Hao Xiaohu.
The Cover Story of this weeks “Stern” magazine took me to the greenhouse of Hamburg’s botanical garden. “The Biology of Love” is yet another take on the human inclination towards infidelity. The lush foliage helped me to hide the faces of the unfaithful.
(The ones who show themselves are happily married.)
I just read that it will take at least another ten years before Tepco can even start removing the melted cores of Fukushima’s nuclear power plant. It will be several decades until the site can be levelled and milleniums before the radiation will be gone. With this dire information in my head, I started my final darkroom clean up today, where I stumbled across this romantic image. I used it as a christmas-card in 1990.
Hasn’t it got a certain nuclear quality about it?
The consumption of a Singha beer with Rene, the author of the hotel story, brought about the last of my Bangkok stories (for now). We both had some time left in “the big mango” and, talking about all the interesting people we’d met, decided to show some of the cool stuff they do, to a German audience.
It’s time to get used to fact, that Bangkok is not only about ‘go go bars’ and pirated dvd’s these days. There is some true and original creativity out there, and it’s exiting and colourful.
The story was published in “Maxi” magazine.
The decision to use my visa to full capacity and extend my stay in Bangkok until mid March, brought me another two jobs and a lot more fun. For the magazine “Capital” I visited three very stylish boutique hotels and their owners. It made me wonder why most people still prefer to stay at hotel chains.
Towards the end of 2010, the design agency “ringzwei” commissioned me to contribute a couple of pictures to the annual report of Europe’s biggest broadcaster of radio and television, RTL. Instead of going through the usual process of casting people first, I combined photographing people I met on the street with people that were recommended to me, as a safety precaution.
In January 2010 I left Hamburg, to spend a year in Thailands capital Bangkok.
Apart from expecting to get a decent sun tan and several mosquito bites, there wasn’t really a meaningful plan behind this venture into the unknown. I wasn’t too worried about getting a few assignements from magazines back home, in order to pay for my curries. Shortly after my arrival though, a political crisis hit the capital and Thailands image as an easy going Southeast Asian paradise took another dent. As a result, my potential clients looked elsewhere for untroubled travel destinations.
Before the city went up in smoke though, my girlfriend, travel companion, and liaison officer Gabriele, managed to sell an idea to the corporate magazine “à la carte” of household appliance maker “Miele”. She had read an interview with the well known food stylist Suthipong Suriya, aka Karb, in a Bangkokian paper. We found him to be not only a passionate lover of thai food, but also an expert on where to go for the best of it, how to cook it and of course, how to make it look extra-yummy.
I ended up not only taking the pictures, but for lack of an author, wrote my first editorial “piece” as well.
The new issue of “Greenpeace Magazin” looks into the present and future of German energy supplies. A journey through the length of the country, took me to some of the visionary people who contribute to the final shutdown of Germany’s nuclear powerstations.
In the same issue there is my reportage on the mismanagement of Indonesias
“Komodo National Park”, and it’s most prominent resident – the Komodo Dragon.
More information
Order the magazine
After not having used my darkroom for the last two years, I have finally decided to get rid of it altogether. Checking the prices for used enlargers on Ebay tells me, that the stuff won’t even pay for a decent meal anymore.
Next to the processor is a shelf full of old prints, which also needs a bit of trimming down. Today I started looking at a couple of boxes, and amongst photos that make me blush, I’ve retrieved a few old pearls, that will pop up in this blog every now and then. This one was taken on a college trip to Cherbourg, France in 1990.
At the end of last year I was asked to contribute an image, to a recently launched photo edition by the German magazine “Emotion”. The idea behind the selection is, that the image possesses a strong emotional quality for the photographer. I chose a picture that was taken near a national parc in Thailand in 2010, where millions of bats leave their cave at dusk every night, to hunt for food. An overwhelming and poetic sight.
You can buy the photo HERE!
My first logbook entry marks a very sad occasion.
On Saturday, April 2 my soulmate Marc died in Berlin. He would have turned 41 today. The last time we spoke we talked about his new book ‘Hobalala’, how happy he was that he had finished it in time, and that we would meet up soon for his birthday.
Hard to believe that there will be no more mutual adventures, like the one last year, where we raced through Hanoi on dodgy motorbikes.
I miss him terribly. He made me laugh and drove me mad. Farewell old sport.
For my book “Toast Hawaii” he wrote a short story, which you can read here:
