Going through my search logs, a lot of people are searching for a biography looking for any kind of background information. I have also been getting a whole bunch of emails recently asking for a biography. At first I was convinced that this was just another way to harvest my email (stroke my ego and hope I reply). It turns out, that for some reason a lot of photography students end up on this site looking for a biography for a report or homework. In fact I have been getting quite a few of these requests lately that I decided to write this post to feed their need. I will try to keep this short, I promise.

I was born in 1975 in a small town in East Germany. I am the second child of a family of engineers (everyone in my family is an electrical engineer). With the fall of the iron curtain in 1989 came a lot of change and freedom. It was a really exciting time. I still remember watching the event on TV in disbelief. In 1993 I went to University and studied, well you know it, Electrical Engineering. It was a good time. I never had any trouble learning and I had a really good time.

One year later I was on a vacation with my best friend. We enjoyed being 19 and did whatever we felt like. I came back and boom, there it was. I was drafted into the Army (Bundeswehr). For one year I had to interupt my studies and do my service. I can't really say I regret this experience. It gave me a new perspective and motivated me to study a little more.

I graduated in 2000 with my Masters Degree (got an A). 2000 was a really great time for high tech people. I was offered a job in the Silicon Valley (San Francisco Bay Area) and I took it happily. Since then a lot has changed and I had a couple of other positions until I came to my current company in 2003. I am working as an Analog Design Engineer in a big respectable company.

My photography career.

2003 was about the time I got more serious about photography. I have always liked to take photos, but I wouldn't have considered my earlier photos to be noteworthy. I have tried other forms of art first, looking for a way to balance my technical job. For a while I have rendered computer generated images and it was a lot of fun, but I started to realize that I would never be able to compete on a professional level and it took to long to generate just one image.

I bought my first digital SLR in 2003 and started to "snap" photos. Basically the older pictures in my Mexico Gallery are among the early attempts (older pictures have a black border). Since then I have been on a wonderful journey exploring my creative side. Due to my rewarding and paying job as an engineer, I don't have as much time to devote to photography as I would like, but I still get to spend a lot of time on it. So I guess you can say my career as a photographer is just beginning. I have taken maybe 20,000 photos since 2003.

Due to my strong technical background I understand most facettes of optics and sensors. I can use this knowledge to get the most out of any situation. This gives me the advantage to focus more on the creative side of photography, which I have been trying to improve during the last year or so.

Comparing myself to top notch photographers such as Art Wolfe I know that I still have long ways to go. His work has been a great inspiration for me and kept me going. My ultimate goal is to somehow come close to his proficiency.

Processing

Definitely one of my strengths is my proficiency with photo processing in Photoshop. Making a photo consists of two parts. Taking the shot and developing it. In the digital world this means processing the image. You can rely on the built in processor of your camera (that converts the sensor data into a digital image) or you can take matters into your own hands and process RAW data (the data as it comes from the sensor) in the computer. You can compare the RAW data with a photo negative. There are a lot of choices available (paper, chemicals, lab equipment, processing steps) that determine how your picture will look like and there are even more options available on processing a RAW file. It is also a form of art that is often overlooked or not credited enough. I do not alter images in Photoshop and you cannot make a good photo from a bad shot in Photoshop either, but you can tune tonal resonse curves, bring out some detail in the shadow or highlights that determine how your photo will look like.

Currently I am writing a series of Digital Workflow Tutorials. In these tutorials I will take the reader through the whole process of developing a RAW image. This is just the way I do it. Every photographer has their own personal Workflow and some guard their secrets very well. It took me quite some time to figure all this out, so make sure to check it out.