English
About
I never really intended to publish an “About Me” page on my website, because the spotlight here belongs to the animals, not to me. Still, I receive messages on a daily basis: How do I work? How are my photographs made? What equipment do I use? So here is a small insight, in my own words, honest, personal, and without the usual biographical clichés.
Being a wildlife photographer is a rare profession, and in the country where I live there are only a handful of people who follow this path and have actually managed to make a living from it. That's why it has been a true privilege for me to belong to this small group for over a decade.
It is a calling filled with uncertainty, and if there is one thing I can guarantee: there are no guarantees in wildlife photography. And yet, if I had to start all over again, I would not hesitate for a moment, I would choose this path again. The freedom to choose which stories I want to tell makes this work uncompromising, intense and irreplaceable.
Wildlife photography is not about gear or technology, nor is it about owning the most expensive telephoto lens. The animals write the rules, only to break them again. They do not appear on command and they do not pose according to a script.
I can make plans, scout locations, wait for hours, days or weeks, and in the end the animals still decide when, how and whether a moment happens at all. Expectations exist only within us. In nature, nothing and no one owes you a single moment. Those who demand immediate results and chase the quick shot will lose. Those who keep going even when they have already given up are the ones who eventually win.
Spending thousands of hours at eye level with wild animals, some of them barely larger than your own hand, changes the way you see the world. You become more sensitive to the quiet, easily overlooked details, to movements, changing light and small moments that would otherwise pass unnoticed.
This closeness to nature has taught me a healthy sense of minimalism. It has made me more mindful and more grateful for simple, genuine moments, while at the same time helping me to shut out some of the loud and often artificial noise of our world.
It takes years to develop your own style and to understand which stories you truly want to tell. The willingness to return home again and again with an empty memory card is the currency that pays for this profession in the beginning, long before the first clients or opportunities come knocking. And despite all the difficulties, you also experience appreciation and gratitude from people who understand just how much work, passion and patience lies behind it all.
Spend a few hours sitting quietly in a forest and it quickly becomes clear that the world does not revolve around you. We share this planet with countless millions of other living beings. Your ego shrinks while life, in all its forms is overwhelmingly present. Perhaps this is the greatest wisdom of nature: those who step back can recognize the true magnitude of life.
Thank you for taking the time to read this far. Time is one of the most valuable resources we have, and reading this probably hasn't told you much more about me than you already knew before. But if my photographs bring you even a single moment of joy, then every second of it has already been worthwhile.
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