Dear visitor,
Thank you for visiting my portfolio, I hope you enjoy and like some of the work.
I grew up in Switzerland and moved to New York City, somewhat on a whim for a job in IT in 2003. Here I met my wife, we got married, bought a house in the New Jersey suburbs. And now, some years later, there are no dull moments thanks to two wonderful children. I certainly didn't expect in my wildest dreams that after 17 years I’d still be in New York, but I guess that's just how life goes.
I started taking pictures on camping holidays in Italy as a kid with a Fujica all manual SLR a camera, where my mom and I shared some lenses. In the in the early 2000 I bought my first digital camera, and I remember the shutter-lag driving me nuts. Then after my son was born I got a Nikon D90 with a 18-200mm lens, and that is when I started to pursue the hobby more seriously.
Today photography is somewhere between hobby and all-consuming obsession. Sometimes I do fantasize about "going pro", traveling to exotic and glamorous places around the world on National Geographic's dime, rub shoulders with Art Wolfe, and then hold TED talks sharing my experiences. The reality though is most likely a lot less romantic and glamorous, so right now I prefer to just keep shooting for fun, without the pressure of having to feed my family with it.
Photographically don't want limit myself to one subject, but rather shoot whatever is in front of me and that I think looks great. This can be landscapes, architecture, macro or close-up, abstracts or street etc. Rarely do I go out to deliberately shoot. Instead in most cases I go some place, by myself or with my family, and I bring the camera along. I do have a growing "shot-list", but it's like my Netflix queue that just keeps growing and hardly ever gets any smaller... I like to be outside in nature, including in bad weather. Often I find inclement weather more interesting than a clear blue sky. Generally I think I like photos that are not too busy, have strong colors and graphics - or not...
I love and admire the work of Jay Maisel - https://www.jaymaisel.com/, and I can identify with his approach and philosophy of light, gesture and color, as far as I can understand it at least. Also, every self respecting photographer seems to wheel around a suitcase full of gear that’s worth many thousands of dollars, while he, the legend that he is, walks around with a 28-300 super zoom. "The more gear you carry around, the less photos you take." I wholeheartedly subscribe to that credo, and it validates that even I with sub-par equipment can take a picture that is worth looking at.
Eddie Soloway’s pictures speak to me somehow - http://eddiesoloway.com/. I saw him doing a National Geographic talk in Philadelphia a few years back and really enjoyed that. He exudes a calmness that I wish I had, and I feel it’s also reflected in his photos.
For wildlife I admire Joel Satore - https://www.instagram.com/joelsartore/and love his photo Ark project where he photographs animals on a black or white background. My photos of the toad try to replicate that style.
I “met” Bryan Peterson on YouTube watching his ‘You keep shooting’ series. He is very creative and sees beauty in unexpected places, one just have to know how to find it. He shoots anything that makes a good image, which i like. I enjoy some of his books too, “Learning to see creativity” and “Understanding Exposure”.
I read and enjoy the books by Michael Freeman, some are quite technical, others focus more on the art, what makes impactful images, what are we trying to tell.
Of the newer, current photographers I enjoy Max Rive dramatic mountain landscapes in very dramatic light.
I enjoy following the adventures of Nick Page, Thomas Heaton, Nigel Danson, Adam Gibbs, Gavin Hardcastle and James Popseys to name a few. Looking at their portfolios and Instagram-feeds I noticed a difference to the above legends, and that is that their range of subjects that they shoot is much more narrow - or at least what they post on instagram. They are landscape photographers and that’s all that they shoot. Their feeds look coherent, with colors matching across the images. But I also find it a bit limiting. Art Wolfe in his book advises not to specialize, but to shoot everything, and I agree with that.
Sean Tucker is a street photographer in London, he uses strong highlight/shadow contrast, which I enjoy.
I watched a ton of Youtube videos by Serge Ramelli, and also got some of his courses, and learned a lot from him on how to use Lightroom, Photoshop and various other aspects of photography.
What I would like to achieve here is for you, the viewer to say "Wow, that's a cool shot", or "Ha, I've never seen that!" or "Hmm.. it looks cool, but what is it?"
If you would like to use one of my images, or buy a print please contact me via email, so we can discuss the details.
Thank you again for the visit on this site.
-Alex