I always had a deep appreciation for photography as a medium to tell stories, able to capture emotions and moments with a single press of a button. Photograpers have the rare talent to craft versions of realities with just light, time and that little bit of luck and magic. And I always felt, that this was something i will never be able to do – until I finally decided to give it a try, just as I turned 32 years old.
These are just some examples of the thousand and thousand of images I took since that fateful day - narratively framed by year. A little cacophony of how I have grown as a photographer and visual storyteller.
The first 365.
May 8, 2021—32 years on the clock, and there I was with my very first camera, the Fujifilm XE-4, rocking its 27mm F2.8 pancake lens. No bells and whistles, no flashy stuff—just me, clueless about Fuji's system. Started off snapping staged shots of family, friends and small happenings – alsways testing out the available film recipes, and getting a hang to make the most out of the lens. I was a camera rookie with a deep theoretical knowledge. Key lesson: conceptualizing a shot and actually capturing it are two different beasts.
For the first 365 days, I set everything on automatic, just wandering around, clicking away, trying to get the hang of composition, light, and contrast. Lunch breaks turned into mini photo expeditions, leaning hard into a black-and-white vibe to dodge my weird fear of colors. Fast forward to the end of 2021, and I'd clocked over 3,000 shots. Most weren't masterpieces, but there were some real gems.
Year two.
Many years before i even thought of getting into photography, i was keenly aware that our minds can shape our perception (I still find myself assessing the "skate-ability" of places, despite not riding my board for years). So when I began spotting "motifs" in my surroundings, I loved it. My perspective started to transitioned from a guy with a camera to thinking and seeing like a true photographer. All those times exploring Hamburg, engaging in subreddit discussions, and immersing myself in YouTube photography bubble —all those hours finally paid off. But after a year full-automatic mode, i got complacent on a "from the hip—snap & go" covert style of photography. Meaning, even though I started to see the motifs popping up, I was not able to accurately capture them. So i started to slow myself down, submerging myself in the moments and situations around myself – not as a hunter for "that shot" but as a unbiased observer of life, as it happens. As 2022 continued to unfold, my growing experience brought greater control over subjects, camera dials, and the shots I captured – which lead me to adapt my shooting style quite drastically. The viewfinder became my new gateway to seeing my surroundings. Platforms like FujiXweekly and Reddit played a vital role, guiding me in refining my new approach, and the confidence to personalize popular film recipes. First opportunities in professional settings presented themselves, from social media productions to weddings, and everything kept fueling my aspirations of improving my own photography.
13.000 shots deep – and still hungry for more.
One way to improve yourself as a photographer is to shoot a lot. The other way to improve is to level up your gear and learn to utilize it to the best of its ability. Until mid-'22, I only owned one lens and body, and I think I mastered the 27mm quite well. So, two more lenses joined the party: a 75mm f1.8, primarily used to document my wife's pregnancy from start to finish but has not seen much use since the birth of our son, and a 50mm f1.2, my first fully manual lens, and since purchase, tightly attached to my Fujifilm XE-4. Due to the nature of the nifty fifty, everything was under my manual command—aperture, focus, ISO—there was no way around it. It rattled my nerves initially, and I messed up so many great shots due to missing the focus or underexposing the whole scene – but after mastering this intricate focus ballet for almost a full year, I'm slowly feeling like a manual maestro (at least on my good days).
If you read the story about my personal brand, you know that 2023 was the year that changed everything. My photography shifted from "go out and snap whatever" to more privately documenting my life – a loose series of pictures I call "diaper diaries." Another aspect that changed was my weekly photo strolls, becoming less frequent, but luckily did not die out completely. One of the few times I went out resulted in my first attempt at a mini-series called "faces of football," captured at St. Pauli. The series documents the many faces of a buzzing crowd right before a kickoff. I was also able to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine that year: visiting Japan – the biggest possible shoutout to my little brother for making this possible and traveling with me. I have always been intrigued and inspired by Japanese culture and their way of life – heavily influenced by my ongoing love for anime. The two and a half weeks we spent there, traveling, documenting, and engaging with this foreign world that felt so familiar in so many ways – was such a blast and something I will remember for the rest of my life.
