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I got to know Kristin at a concert through my friend Georg. She's a physiotherapist and into analogue photography. She lives in the 17th district, actually just a few houses away from my former apartment. The weather was kinda foggy and cold that day.
I met her early morning at her apartment where she told me that she feels more comfortable behind the camera and that she's not sure if there will be something good coming out of our walk. Well, we gave it a try. See for yourself.
Kristin makes her coffee by hand.
She usually enjoys the calm of the morning on her couch.
Hernals has a lot of beautiful grungy spots that are perfect for portrait sessions.
Kristin somehow reminds me of Denise Richards.
I love these walls. They're just next to the church on Kalvarienberg.
Kristin has a star tattoo on her hand.
You may know these walls, too. If I remember right, they're on the side of the district authority close to Elterleinplatz.
When walking around the streets, I always try to find these entrances...
...and open doors that lead to hidden backyards like this one. Actually it started to rain only two minutes after we finished shooting. We even forgot about the aftershoot-selfie. But there's gonna be a chance to repeat that for sure.
Let me know what you think about the outcome in the comments.
Stay inspired.
M
Equipment: Fuji XT-1, Fuji XF-35 2.0, Fuji XF-56 1.2
This one, I was looking forward to for quite a while. Georg is one of my closest friends, but it's hard to get him in front of the camera. Georg is a content creator and curator. He works for an Austrian TV station and writes for several film related blogs, among them the NY based Short of the Week. Georg has also been a part of my team at DREAMA TV.
He lives in the 6th district, close to Westbahnhof and Mariahilferstraße. We met at 7:30 and didn't have too much time, as we both needed to work after the shoot. So we decided to walk down to Mollardgasse and look for some nice spots. Here's the result.
As I may mentioned before, I dig these grungy backyards that you find around town if you walk with open eyes.
Georg is into american sports, especially baseball and football. May explain this pose.
Georg is a very funny guy. Though he looks quite serious most of the times.
Back on Mollardgasse.
Totally love this one.
In the end, we found this beautiful backyard next to a school.
Georg is working on new projects right now. Watch out!
This walk was great fun and gave us the chance for a very deep conversation, which I sometimes struggle to find time for nowadays.
Stay Inspired and let me know what you think about this session in the comments.
M
Equipment: Fuji XT-1, Fuji XF-23 2.0, Fuji XF-35 2.0, Fuji XF-56 1.2
Ernst is a self-entitled »Pilgrim 2.0«. A few years ago, he decided to quit his job at Red Bull Media and started to become a professional pilgrim. In 2017, he hiked from Vienna to Marrakesh. Just recently, he published his adventures in a book called »Mein Leben ist eine Pilgerreise« (my life is a pilgrimage for you English speaking folks). I just read the first few chapters and it's an inspiring and sometimes pretty funny read.
I got to know Ernst a few years ago at a DreamAcademia event. Since then, our paths crossed from time to time and I tried to help him to improve his photography skills before his recent hike on the Alpe Adria track, from Austria to Italy. I don't know, if I did a good job as a mentor, as he still uses his iPhone to shoot, anyways, visit his Instagram profile to follow his adventures.
Actually, there was a reason for our shooting. Ernst did a project with the folks from Sonnentor, an Austrian company that produces organic herbs, tea and other great stuff. Ernst needed some photos to document his four day hike from Vienna's Heldentor to Sprögnitz in the Austrian Waldviertel. We were lucky to get beautiful autumn morning light that day.
We started off with some morning sports.
Even a pilgrim takes a tram sometimes.
Some candid morning sun.
As a pilgrim 2.0, your phone is your most important tool. Besides your feet of course.
There must always be time for a nice black and white portrait.
By collecting trash along his way, Ernst tries to raise awareness for the planets' growing trash problem.
I fell in love with this beautiful backyard. Luckily, we found it next to Ernst's first milestone...
The Sonnentor shop in the 7th district.
All shots captured with a Fuji XT-1.
Show me some love on Insta and leave a comment, if you like.
Saitoti is a Massai from Kenya. A few weeks ago, he visited Vienna on his first ever trip outside of Kenya. He is the founder of an online platform that sells jewellery handcrafted by women in his tribe. In this, he sees the only chance to help women - and by that future generations - earn a living and finance education for their children.
As the Massai, like many tribes around the world, suffer from many different issues, most of all climate change, they move to cities where it is hard to find jobs without formal education.
Saitoti is one of the kindest people I ever met and he always carries a smile on his face. We only got to know each other the evening before the shooting, but it felt as if we'd been friends for a long time. I took the portraits during a walk outside of our office, where we discussed a strategy for a crowdfunding campaign for his project. Though it was midday and the sun was quite harsh, we found some sweet spots. His traditional outfit in an urban setting has its very own quality, of course.
Saitoti seems to never be serious. I thought his new ears fit him well.
During our walk, we met this stranger with the nice steam punk goggles. He was quite surprised when a Massai stood next to him and we asked him to take a photo. I needed to take a portrait of him, too:
We found this garage with the super nice window in the ceiling next to a supermarket. Saitoti did, what Massais often do: jump.
Somehow, he couldn't stop laughing after this woman passed by with her dog. Saitoti had never seen such a small dog before.
That's the "dog".
Some nice Massai sandals.
People like Saitoti indeed have the power to change the world.
Again, a spontanous shooting turned into some really nice results.
All shots captured with a Fuji XT-1.
I got to know Henric in a job interview. At the time, I helped one of our clients GEA Waldviertler to build up a new marketing department. Henric sent an initiative application, just when we needed it. We then spent three days together where he proofed his talent for crafting communication strategies, as well as his skills as a singer. I think we wrote a song in the second night (after a spontanous trip to "Little Vietnam", a small village right over the czech border).
Since then we have been friends and as such, Henric asked me for a favour to take a portrait of him. We ended up running around Vienna's 15th district to shoot some. After the shooting, Henric told me, that he had never seen himself like on the pictures and that they help him to work on himself to become the person he see's. I take that as a big compliment.
As you can possibly see, Henric has a very photogenic face, actually he plays theatre from time to time and has proper acting skills. Nevertheless, there wasn't much acting included in this shooting.
Henric has piercing eyes that get an extra punch in black and white.
The morning light gave us some beautiful shades.
In the end, we passed by a nice old phone booth. I like how Henric has a Klaus Kinski-ish craziness in his face on this shot.
Henric sometimes loses himself in his thoughts. I tried to capture some of these moments.
In the end, we were both quite happy with the outcome. Sometimes, spontanous shooting can get you to really nice results.