WHY I TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS - The story behind my photographs
I photograph because I love it. It is my profession, but it is also my hobby. My creative outlet. My escape from everyday life, from work, from everything else that is going on around me. Whenever I pick up a camera, something changes. I get to create. And I think I have always needed that.
01 – Finding my own way
Nobody in my family was a photographer. There was no photographic background, no family business, no network waiting for me, no shortcut. I taught myself. I learned by doing. By making mistakes. By trying again. By looking at photographs and wondering why something worked — or why it didn’t. There were plenty of failures along the way. But that’s also what makes the journey so special to me. Everything I have built in photography has come from my own hands. And when I look back at the path I have taken, I have to admit: „It’s pretty fucking cool.“ Not because everything worked. But because I found my own way.
02 – The part I still love
What I love most about photography hasn’t changed much. I love sitting in a café with someone, talking, getting to know them and eventually taking their portrait. I love finding the right light. I love the moment when a person starts to relax and something real appears. Then I go back to my computer. I sit there with the photographs and start playing. Colours. Contrast. Skin. Black and white. Retouching. Small details. There is something incredibly satisfying about taking an image that already exists and slowly turning it into the photograph I had in my head. That creative process is just as important to me as pressing the shutter.
03 – And then comes the best part
Eventually, I hand the photograph over. And I get to see their reaction. Sometimes it is a smile. Sometimes it is silenceSometimes it is simply that look in their eyes when they see themselves differently. And then, maybe months later, I see the photograph hanging somewhere in their home. That’s when it really hits me. This thing I created has become part of someone else’s life. That is an incredible feeling.
04 – The gift that comes back
Photography gives me much more than I ever expected. It gives me creativity. It gives me people. It gives me experiences. It gives me the freedom to create things that didn’t exist before. But most of all, it gives something back. The appreciation. The feedback. The trust someone gives me when they stand in front of my camera. The joy when they receive something they genuinely love. That kind of appreciation is overwhelming sometimes. And I don’t take it for granted.
05 – Why I still pick up the camera
After more than twenty years, I could probably tell you hundreds of reasons why I photograph. But maybe it is actually much simpler than that. I photograph because I love creating. Because I love people. Because I love light. Because I love the process. Because I love the feeling of seeing something in my head and somehow making it real. And because photography has given me a place where I can be completely myself. It started as something I taught myself. It became my profession. And somewhere along the way, it became my creative home. That’s why I take photographs. Not because I have to: „Because I can’t imagine not doing it.“
