A model with a perfect figure, flawless makeup, and an off-the-rack hairstyle — I experience this situation more often than I'd like. Yet hair isn't just a decorative accessory, but rather the strongest ally in front of the camera.
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I know this article won't interest everyone. If you're here purely for photography, feel free to skip ahead. But over the past few weeks I've been tinkering so much with my website that I wanted to share a few thoughts about it. Not to pat myself on the back, but because I keep getting questions about it.
The email hits my inbox like a sledgehammer: "Your images have been discovered on a Russian website." Without permission, without credit, without any respect for creative work. Once again. You'd think I would have gotten used to it by now, but this digital vandalism affects me every single time.
When I was flipping through my work from the past few years I had to smile. There it was again, this unmistakable style in my pictures. Like a red thread, it weaves through my portfolio, without me ever consciously searching for it. Sometimes I'm amazed how distinct my signature has become. I probably couldn't even publish my images under a pseudonym without being immediately discovered.
Recently at Frankfurt Airport. A group of Asian tourists catches my eye, their faces as white as a sheet of copy paper. Even for me, as a chronically pale person, it's a surprising sight. With these Asian women, it seems to be no genetic coincidence, but rather a system executed with absolute precision.
Have you experienced this? You're sitting on the subway, and across from you sits an attractive woman. She's wearing boots that look excellent on her. In the past, you would have simply said: "Great boots!' In today's woke era, you risk a public backlash for "male harassment".
I'll be honest, I was a bit offended when someone recently asked me if I even still shoot for Playboy. Yes, of course I do. I'm just not the go-to photographer who appears in every single issue. Sometimes it's months between shoots, sometimes a year. That's just how it is.
It started innocently enough. I was scrolling through my own blog, just looking for an old article about pornography, when my eye caught on those little flag emojis. Those pixelated scraps that look like bunting at a German-American friendship festival.
I just got deleted by Google. Not because of dubious content, but because an artificial intelligence claimed that a particular OnlyFans creator appeared on my website. A woman I neither know nor have ever photographed. The AI confused two completely different people and turned it into a DMCA claim.
The news from the film industry came as a surprise: The new Bob Dylan film "A Complete Unknown" was shot at ISO 12,800. What might sound like a technical gamble to many was a welcome validation for me as a photographer.
A baker bakes rolls every day. I sometimes don't touch my camera for weeks. And every single time, there's that gnawing guilt: Shouldn't I be producing daily too, like a proper craftsman? Spoiler: No.
Sometimes you just have to do something crazy. So there I was, standing in this little stationery shop, one of those special places that looks like it's from another era. Japanese envelopes everywhere, handmade papers, binding threads in every conceivable color. A paradise for anyone who loves tactile experiences.
Recently at a shoot, I had to smile again. "Can my boyfriend be there?" the model asked me on the phone. Of course he can, but I already knew what would happen. After twenty minutes, she would be more focused on reading his reactions than following my directions.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the last of the Mohicans. I've been producing my nude calendar every year since 2009, while all around me the moral fingers point ever higher. A photographic relic from a time when one could still celebrate the beauty of the naked body without worry. Am I a dinosaur? Perhaps. But one that refuses to go extinct.
Recently at the airport. I'm standing in line for security and watching a man in front of me desperately trying to repack his suitcase. "The power bank must go in the carry-on," says the security officer with the sternness of an elementary school teacher explaining for the fifth time that two plus two equals four.
You know how it is: by the end of November, Frankfurt is down for the count. Gray skies, the first slushy snow, and just thinking about the heating bill puts you in a foul mood. While others retreat into seasonal depression and mulled wine, I pack my camera gear and disappear to the Canary Islands. From November 27th to December 12th, I transform northern Fuerteventura into my personal outdoor studio.
There are these moments in art history that make us blush today. Not because we've become prudish — quite the contrary. We blush because we feel caught in the act. As if our ancestors had caught us peeping through a keyhole.
You might not know the feeling: You spend years perfecting your artistic vision, meticulously crafting your visual language, and then some algorithm comes along and labels your website as pornographic. Welcome to my world.
Travel has always been something we long for. In Schwetzingen Castle, there's a special building. A long, dark corridor that leads to what looks like "the end of the world". As a child, I loved this installation. There was something tempting about it, something that pulled me towards faraway places. Away from the limits of daily life, towards new horizons.
The other day, I looked in the mirror and was terribly startled. Not because I looked particularly bad — no, because I looked completely normal. No flawless porcelain-like skin. No eyes gleaming like hand-polished marbles. And, God forbid, even a few wrinkles that testified to the fact that I had laughed once or twice in my life.
We photographers are all somewhat vain, aren't we? Actually, I think people in general long for recognition. For being seen. And so I'm always delighted when there's a publication of mine in a magazine or my images appear somewhere else.
As a photographer, you experience all sorts of things in front of the lens. But the latest posing trend is pushing even experienced professionals to their limits. A story about stretched necks, dominant chins, and the eternal search for the perfect shot.
Last Monday, I found myself once again at my computer, engaged in an epic battle with Adobe's artificial intelligence. You probably know the drill: you just want to quickly edit a photo for your blog, but the AI has decided to play moral guardian for the day.
As a nude photographer, I know censorship all too well. Not from totalitarian states or distant regimes — no, I'm talking about censorship right here in the supposedly free Western world. The same West that's supposedly the land of unlimited possibilities.
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