this is the what

When did you first know that you wanted to be a photographer?

-It was always clear to me that I wanted to become a photographer, there was never a moment of doubt. Maybe because my photography is so closely connected to my life, its who I am, truly. What I really learned is that photography is honest, it is a direct mirror of my life, every picture sums it up, everything I have seen around the world on my many travels, all the places I’ve lived.

- Born in Germany

– As a teenager I went out to explore the world: backpacking through Europe, Asia and Africa

– I wanted to see life in different parts of the world, – the camera-frame helped me to understand and process what I experienced.

– I crossed the Sahara desert, climbed the highest peaks of Africa, travelled throughout Southeast Asia, and India.

– Here I developed an eye for simplicity and truth, this is still like the foundation of my work today

- I started out shooting for international aid organizations in Africa and Asia

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Who were some of the first photographers that inspired you?

- I don’t look at other photographers work, and never really have done so. I am very interested in understanding contemporary culture in all its forms, throughout all genres, to understand the times we are going through. I am also very interested in paintings and art movements in paintings.

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Are you currently working on any personal projects?

- I am constantly shooting, pushing the boundaries and working on different new projects, experimenting, exploring, the heart of my photography.

- I work on what truly excites me, I do what I love, exploring new ways and creating new solutions. Its a very exciting moment in photography!

- My new experimental work:

Seeing light in a new way, explore energy, light and space, speed. For instance, a recent series using the moon as the sole light source. I focused on the energy of motion, the speed, the contrast between the stillness of the landscape and the energy of the engines. We shot in the middle of the desert, in an open vast space, like a huge studio, learning to read the natural light and how it reacts with the surface of the object

- New York project:

To capture the essence of any place, I focus on the energy, how people interact with the space. 
New York City is unique. Its essence is about pure life. Weird, beautiful, strange juxtapositions of all facets of existence, thats the beauty of it. These photographs of New York are not only photos about a city; they’re more general, universal – these images are about life itself, the essence of humanity. I absorb the energy of New York City in my work.

- About my approach to photography:

- I have a unique perspective on everything I photograph. 
– It always inspires me to go beyond my imagination. 
– My approach is to make visible what is invisible. I find new expressions and make it my mission to learn something from every image.
– For myself, taking photographs means asking questions rather than looking for answers. 
– I think we are just at the beginning of understanding the new possibilities.
– The ultimate intention of my work is to capture the pulse and movement of the ever changing culture of our lives.
– The best photographs should show the strangeness and variety of life. 
– Before I photograph, I calm my mind. This is concentration on one affair. I blend out whats not necessary, with concentration.
– Focus on ideas instead of technology. 

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

Tobias Hutzler

If you could go back ten years, what advice would you give yourself? 

“….do everything exactly the same way as you are about to do it.”

I learned to follow my own path, to reveal my own creative identity. I always listen to the own voice, vision and instincts.

(Tobias is based in New York. See more of his work, here)

Florian, can you tell me a little about your personal project, Grüß Gott – a fairy tale?

i started it a year ago and i went to the village where i was born several times to cover one year. it was important to me to show/see the place changing in one year in case of seasons, which is a permanent cycle. the people and traditions dont change that much – mostly not at all – only the surroundings like a loop. i left that place when i was 19 and i only come back to see my family which is very close to me.

the longer i am away, memories from my childhood start to fade and things become more and more surrealistic in a way. things like religion, people dressing up in uniforms and so on.

my everyday life in a metrople like Berlin differs almost 100% to the life back there on the countryside. i always wanted todo a photo project about that place. at the beginning i didnt exactly know where i will end up – now i think i created a little fairy tale.

i wanted to create a story with an common thread, that will be seen or felt by the recipient. in what way i actually dont care. that should be created by oneself individually. 

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

Florian Reischauer

(Florian is based in Berlin, see more of his work, here)

Marco Scozzaro

Marco Scozzaro

Marco Scozzaro

Who were some of the first photographers that you really loved?

Marco Scozzaro

Marco Scozzaro

Marco Scozzaro

Can you tell me about your project Semi-Detached? I am interested in how you show your subjects in their clothes as well as in the nude, and the connection between those images.

Marco Scozzaro

Marco Scozzaro

Marco Scozzaro

Marco Scozzaro

If you could go back ten years, what advice would you give yourself?

Marco is based in New York. See more of his work, here.

Can you tell me a a little bit about your campaign shoot for Jim Rickey? How did you come up with the concept?

I got the idea to the Honkey Kong project when I was in Hong Kong visiting a friend, who had access to a skyscraper rooftop. I’m based in Stockholm, Sweden, which is a fairly small city for being a capital without any major tall rising buildings, like they have in the States, China and other crowded cities. Being amazed of the view from up there and seeing the daily life from a bird perspective I got the idea of the project. A while later I was commissioned by the shoe brand Jim Rickey to shoot an advertise campaign and managed to sell the idea to them.

The mission of the campaign was to do a tribute to classic 2d platform video games, old-school side-scrolling games like Donkey Kong, and let a person navigate the streets. I have my background in photojournalism and even if this was an advertise shoot, I wanted to keep the retouch to a minimum, instead of shooting towards a greenscreen or white backdrop in the studio and using a composition in post production, we wanted to shoot it live on location in Hong Kong. They feeling of the images being shot in the field is more authentic and very difficult to resample in the studio.

A couple of weeks later we went back to Hong Kong with a very small production team of three people, me as photographer and creative director, a production manager and an assistant. Instead of bringing professional models with us, we knew it was more about the feeling of the images and that a too big of a crew would slow us down. Therefor we decided to shot it within the team, using ourselves as models, and also found some additional people on the ground that we could use. The most difficult was to get access to the different rooftops and to be able to scout as many locations as possible. The language was also an issue so we needed local fixers who spoke Cantonese. We contacted a local film school and got hold of two students that we hired as fixers. The production schedule was very tight so we only had two days of scouting and doing test shots, then two days of shooting the series of 10 images.

By shooting from as high above as possible, using a tele lens to make the images more flat, it was possible to create the feeling of the model being the players alter ego, the character, and the actual image would be the players perspective. We then used walkie-talkies to communicate with the persons on the ground, fine-tuning them in the right perspective and also having a overview of incoming traffic since we were actually in the middle of highly traffic streets, and did not have time, or budget, to close it of. I believe the Honkey Kong campaign series worked since it’s a bit weird and twisted perspective of an ordinary view. We have all been up on a higher point looking down, but perhaps not though of it in that way. I would love to see if people would take the idea further and do their own versions of the concept.

Christian Åslund

Christian Åslund

Christian Åslund

Christian Åslund

Christian Åslund

Christian Åslund

Any words of wisdom for the up-and-comers?

Get inspired by other peoples works, not just within photography, and add a bit of yourself into what you do and try to create something new and fresh. My way of getting inspiration is to pull back from the computer and leave the office or studio for a walk or just go out to take images and by doing so I get far more ideas and inspiration.

Christian Åslund

Christian Åslund

Christian Åslund

Christian Åslund

(Christian is based in Stockholm, Sweden. See more work, here)