About me and my Photography

First off, thanks for your interest in the person behind the pictures on this site.
Born in 1976, I grew up in the smooth mountains of the Taunus in Germany.

Taunus Silhouette

This was a lovely and slightly Hillbillyish area, but close to the Rhein/Main area, which is one of Europe's largest financial and industrial centres.

Frankfurt Skyline

I never had any serious contact with photography until an age of 22 or so. What happened then, you ask? Well, I got my first Audi, started the first bits of AudiStory.com, a private website about those cars. I travelled to meetings and needed something to photograph the cars. Well, I had an old P&S film camera, but scanning did not yield the results I wanted.

Audi quattro

I thought long and hard whether to buy a film SLR and a proper scanner or invest into one of those "digital cameras" everyone was talking about. After quite some research, I decided for the Olympus 2020 because it promised a much faster and better workflow: Remember that at that time, all my images would be online pictures of car meetings. I had picked the 2020 for its image quality and full range of manual controls. The car meetings came and went and I of course used the camera for other stuff, too. One of it was photography of machinery, something I still do today.

Enlighted Fordson

In 1997 I had started my studies of mechanical engineering at University of Technology Darmstadt.

Toy World University

Until 2001 not much happened with or to my photography. Then, I was given the opportunity to visit Christchurch/New Zealand in a student exchange programme. With me came my trusty Olympus 2020. Eventhough I wasn't travelling as much as I should, my camera accompanied me on many bike rides and sightseeings. It was a great way to show my friends and family back home how life is downunder.

Porter's Pass

During my 2003 re-visit to New Zealand, when I did much more travelling and sight-seeing in shorter time, my photography took another change. During my studies, I was living there, now, I was soaking up the scenery and landscape photography was a major point for me. However, the thing that motivated me to also look deeper into the technical aspects of photography was Infrared photography. My first tries were done in New Zealand's epic landscape.

Cass Infrared Panorama

Back home, I finished my degree and started a job as a research assistant at university. I bought a Minolta Dimage 7, because it seemed what I needed. But somehow, we never became friends.

Glassy Factory, Dresden

So, I was using my 2020, the D7 and a 4040 on and off. Until dSLRs came into the price range I found acceptable. In March 2005 I bought a Pentax *ist DS and in the time after that, a few lenses. People say it's the photographer, not the camera that counts. I agree, but I need a camera I want to touch, I want to use, I can trust. The DS is that camera for me, it motivates me to get up my lazy behind and do something, try something. I currently have a tendency to shoot Macros and Shapes (Abstracts). I try to broaden into new fields for me like Sports or People while refining my Landscape and Car/Machinery skills.

I believe that

I reckon that this combination is significant and descriptive both for me and my photography.
Matchingly, the webspace of jr-worldwi.de started as a geek&technique resource, but during the last two years my interest in the artistic side has strengthened enough to make a truely dedicated section sensible.

 artechnic