It feels like the year 2018 just ended yesterday but 2019 is indeed already half way through. It has been exciting 6 months with new customers, new adventures and new encounters.
In January, I met carpenter Maria Huserek who’s lovingly taking care of vintage rocking horses and has lots of funny stories to share around them for Bild der Frau. I also put three kicking ass female boxers in good light for maxima, not entirely without fear being punished for a disliked portrait. Eventually I survived without bruises.
February took me back to one of my favorite places in Vienna, the great hotel magda, for the brand new San Francisco based, cross-cultural magazine Perfect Strangers. I also drove as far as to Hungary for an industrial reportage for TRUMPF to only learn, that the CEO and I share the same friends of our teenage days. Small world!
Just a few days later into March, Virtuoso Life Mag asked me to portrait the music manager Kornél Magyar of Aria Hotel in Budapest. He’s really a source and good looking on top! I was also pretty grateful to be hired by Sotheby’s Magazine to cover the great Mark Rothko exhibition at Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna followed by the Global Council at breathtaking Stadtpalais Liechtenstein.
Having had honor to meet Leopold Etz, a retired detective of the Lower Austrian homicide squad who was investigating not less than partly 500 extremely spectacular murder, will stay in my memories forever. He was such a quiet, gentle and introverted man I couldn’t believe he was dealing with murder, blood and other very ugly things for a 36 year long career. Being hired by DieZeit and having complete artistic freedom was an added pleasure.
To be able to work for 11Freunde soccer magazine was another great joy, especially because they’ve asked me twice when I was already booked. I spent a funny morning with Austrian soccer legend Andreas Herzog to create dozens of strong and intimate portraits. The following week I had the next great encounter with another fantastic Austrian celebrity, Tom Neuwirth alias Conchita Wurst for DATUM magazine cover story in my studio.
Before heading to shoot a travel-style reportage in Prague (CZ) in May for The Wall Street Journal, I stopped by at the brand new Gulftream Aerospace offices in Vienna and also fooled around with funny Bratislava mayor Matúš Vallo for MONOCLE. The Wall Street Journal commissioned me for some more work in Kitzbühel, Vienna and Warsaw, all of which was not only a hell lot of work but also such a great pleasure and experience!
Because I enjoy great food not only in my belly but also in front of my camera, I was happy being asked to shoot 3 cover stories for ADEG Land und Leut’ customer magazine and another cover story for A LA CARTE magazine with actress Caroline Peters. Be assured, all food tasted as delightful as it looked thanks to my awesome food stylists who really did a great job #highfive!
Listening to the story and ambitions of Dr. Franz-Joseph Huainigg and taking his portrait for DieZeit marked the highlight of this first half year which will be hard to top. But there are already a few things appearing on the horizon of which I’ll be telling you more later this year.
Stay tuned!
