Where pictures are made, a story often begins

I grew up in Lienz and in Carinthia. I trained as a machine fitter.

At seventeen I went to Vienna – to dance. Latin American, professionally. For a few years I made my living from it.

In 2002 I met my wife in Rome. We stayed in Italy until 2007, then went back to Vienna. Years in international sales followed, among them four years in Dubai.

Today I know that every one of those stations has something to do with the photographer I became.

From the dancing, the feel for the right moment stayed with me.

That short instant in which a movement reaches its peak. You see it coming before it arrives.

From the sales years I took something else:

listening.

Because somebody commissioning photography usually knows very well what they need. They just do not always describe it in a photographer's language.

My job is to bring the two together.

In 2022 my life changed.

Our daughter Adeya died.

After that, photography led me onto a path I had not known before.

The drone was the first thing that got me outside again. The flying turned into photographing. Single pictures turned into a passion. And at some point it became my profession.

First I photographed from the air, then from the ground. I began to take an interest in landscapes, in wildlife, in macro, and finally in the night.

In an insect eye that only becomes one sharp image out of many single frames.

In landscapes that sometimes exist in the right light for a few minutes only.

And in the night sky, where a single picture can mean a whole night of preparation and patience.

Nobody taught me any of it.

I worked photography out for myself – through trial and error, through countless hours outside, and through many pictures that did not work.

Three years in which I learned a lot of things twice.

And the longer I photograph, the more I notice:

The technique is only the beginning.

What matters is being outside. Observing. Waiting. And being ready when the one moment comes.

Most of this work is waiting.

And that is exactly what I like.

An astro shot can take whole nights. The camera runs on a motorised tracking head while I sit or lie beside it, waiting for everything to come together.

Darkness. Weather. Stars. Landscape. Light.

And sometimes nothing happens at all.

Up on the mountain before sunrise it is no different.

You walk up in the dark, set up the camera and wait.

The sky stays grey.

Next time, again.

And the time after that.

Until one morning it finally comes.

The moment when the first ray climbs over the ridge and, for a few seconds, everything looks exactly the way you pictured it.

Then you know again why you walked up all the other times.

Since July 2025 we have been living in East Tyrol again.

And for my work that is more than an address.

The Hohe Tauern National Park begins practically at my front door. The Lienz Dolomites just as much.

That changes the way I photograph.

I do not only have to hope for an opportunity. I can come back.

Once more.

And once more.

I can watch where the fog stays in the morning. Which valley takes the light first. When the Milky Way stands over a particular ridge. How the weather turns, and how quickly a landscape changes with it.

Over time you come to know a place differently.

Not as a visitor.

But as somebody who keeps coming back.

And at some point something comes out of that which cannot be planned:

the picture you were actually looking for.

My first photographic commission came in 2024, from Klosterneuburg Abbey.

Since then I have photographed and filmed there from the air several times, most recently for a film at sunrise.

In 2025 came “The Towers of the Vienna Woods” for Wienerwald Tourismus – to this day my longest photographic project.

Alongside it came the photographic work for the Lienz Symphony Orchestra.

In 2026 I entered the Sony World Photography Award for the first time. One of my pictures was selected for the shortlist in the Landscape (Open) category and was exhibited at Somerset House in London from 17 April to 4 May 2026.

Today I work for tourism boards, hotels, event organisers, property clients and editorial teams in Austria and northern Italy.

From the ground and from the air.
In stills and film.

For commercial drone work I hold the A1/A3 and A2 certificates, I am registered as a drone operator and I carry liability insurance.