My Phautobiography

A Narrative.

 

Photography began for me at age 6 or 7, when my father gave me something like an imitation Kodak Instamatic camera or so to shoot my teacher and classmates at school. (Mind you, this type of shooting was and is permitted in Austrian schools.) I knew he had accepted me as worthy of photography when he let me take his most precious camera at the time, an Agfa Karat 4, on a boy scout trip to Øyer, Norway. This was in 1969. On the first evening of this trip, we arrived in Kiel, Germany, searched for a TV-shop, and then stood out on the sidewalk half the night to watch Neil Armstrong step onto the surface of the moon. Then we had to run to catch the ferry to Oslo. I was 12 years old.

My father was a hard working textile engineer with photography as his passion. He had some B&W darkroom equipment safely stowed away on the highest shelf in the closet, and about once every couple of months he took it down, set it up in the kitchen, and prepared for a long night's work. We then ate an early dinner, took an early shower, and then neither my mother nor I were allowed in the kitchen or the shower room. They had become darkrooms for the night. (Luckily, we commonly have separate showers and bathrooms here in central Europe.) I was allowed to assist in the darkroom from age 9 or so on, but only until 10 p.m.

As I grew older, it showed that my interest in photography had also grown. It must have been my 15th birthday when my parents gave me my first SLR camera, a Russian Zenit which they had bought for peanuts from this friend who'd lost his job. It was bulky, but I took some neat pictures with it. A few years later, I enrolled at Vienna University to study German and English literature.

When I was 21, I got an invitation to go to California for the summer. I decided it was about time to get a decent, modern camera for this occasion. After looking at what was available, I bought a Yashica FR I. I bought it because I thought that eventually, I could buy some fine Zeiss/Contax lenses for it. If I remember correctly, this was the first time I bought major camera gear myself, and also the first time I exceeded my budget to do so.

The trip to California changed my life forever. Just a few months before, I had started to teach at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna as a German instructor. I was younger than some of my students then, who came from different colleges in the US. My English was not very good on a practical, conversational level, it was simply too academic. I had felt more than once that I did not quite understand what my students had said or asked. Going to where they came from made a big difference. I found out that most of these misunderstandings were cultural, not linguistical. From now on, I could relate to the culture my students were used to, and thus be more helpful to them in their endeavors to learn our language and culture.

But the trip also changed my photography. I came back with a few trays worth of Kodachrome slides I showed to friends, and found they did not get bored after the first reloading of the magazine. So I decided to show my work to "real" photography people. A near-by Camera Club was run by the father of one of my best friends (incidentally, this man was also President of the Austrian Amateur Photographers Assiciation). I asked him about showing my slides, and maybe joining the club, and learned that one could not just join, but had to participate in their meetings as a guest for a while, and also enter photographs in some of their local photo contests, and only if the majority of members would then vote in favor, one could join the club. Also, only members or special invitees could present shows at the club. I decided to give it a try. He said, they would allow me to enter 4 slides in their monthly competition the same week. I chose architecture shots from San Francisco. All the pictures in the competition were shown three times, three jurors took notes. When the jurors left the room to add up their points, about a dozen men, all of them much older than me, asked me which had been my pictures, and how I had taken them. Half an hour later, the jurors came back and announced the winners, and handed out prizes. They did not mention my photographs. After the ceremony, they showed the pictures again, commented and gave the points scored for each picture. It turned out that both the highest scored single picture and the highest total for all four pictures were mine. However, as a guest, I could not win prizes. After the show, the speaker of the jury, my father's friend and the club's President, said that I would have won, had I been a member, and that the jury had deemed my pictures to show a novel and exciting way to see modern architecture. Based on this judgment, he initiated a vote amongst those present to invite me to join the club. Two minutes later, I had become member of a club which had produced several Austrian amateur photographer champions.

The Fotoklub Volksheim Inzersdorf and its President, Johann Strizsik, helped my photographic vision and technique a lot. Not only did we discuss and argue about the ups and downs of individual photographs in our monthly contests, but the members also gave tutorials on the creation of good photography, from setting up the exposure to the darkroom work. Shortly after me, more and more young people became members, and brought new and interesting ideas into the club. We got to the point where we were all good friends who not only met at the club, but also frequently called each other on random occasions to go out and shoot together. After our President's untimely death, we tried even harder to be "perfect", and to win yet another Club Champion's trophy.

But, eventually I became a rebel. I more often than not deviated from what was considered "good" competition photography. Championship photography had turned to be trendy; clichee photography, with the winners usually being those who best represented the mainstream. It seemed that in one year, only withered faces of 90-year-old alpine farmers were accepted by jurys, while next year, only girl dancers in the classical swan pose stood a chance to win. The clubs, ours included, started to select their entries by what the clubs' juries thought could be a National winner just for fitting into the right category of subjects, not by the merit of the individual picture. There were two of us who opposed this competitive system, my friend Horst Rödding with his very personal style was the other. To us, it seemed that this competitiveness did no longer enhance, but rather inhibit individual expression. A few months after Horst had turned his back on the Club, I too returned my membership. I left and decided to pursue my own photographic style.

Meanwhile, several more trips to the US had followed the first, I had driven from east coast to west coast three times, and from west coast to east coast once. I had used my friend Steve Lelewer's residence in Southern California as "home base" for extensive drives to the State Parks and National Parks in western USA, from San Diego all the way to Yellowstone, from San Francisco to New Mexico. The Institute of European Studies sent me out on an extensive recruiting trip from Chicago all the way to the east coast and back, which by coincidence <g> led me to colleges in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and upstate New York in the fall when Indian Summer is at its best. On what turned out to be my only really free weekend of this trip, I went to Montreal and managed to drive the Grand Prix track in my mid-size rental car. Lots of fun!

Meanwhile I had also changed my equipment and bought a Canon A-1, and an AE-1 Program as a second body. This was necessary because I did color and b&w at the same time. When the T-90 came out, I bought it, and gave the AE-1 to my wife. I had also switched from my Tamron zooms I had had since my Yashica days (I just needed to buy a Canon adapter when I changed camera brands) to Canon fixed focal FD lenses. In the mid-nineties I upgraded to medium format, and step by step invested in a Hasselblad system. I am somewhat proud to say that all my major Hasselblad equipment I have is "pre-owned", as I guess you'd call it euphemistically. In fact, the only major piece I ever bought new, a CF 4/40 FLE lens, is no longer in my possession. I sold it to a studio professional when I found a ten-year old Biogon 4.5/38 (903 SWC) in mint condition for a very reasonable price. All my lenses are CF, and although Hasselblad has just released their CFi line (i for improved), I like to believe that the Zeiss lens quality is so superior that the "i" could not do much better for me.

In 1999, Wake Forest University was scheduled to open a program here in Vienna. The program director, Professor of German Larry West, knew my work with American institutions for a long time. He and I had met a number of times and had become friends. He recommended me to the University, and they invited me to teach at this program, and also manage the Vienna house. This offer was too good to decline, especially since they also give me this webspace to publish my photography. :-) My visits to WFU's beautiful Reynolda Campus also provide me with opportunities for photography and photographic discussions with university photographer Ken Bennett, who has become a very good friend of mine. As you might guess, I hope to work for them for a long, long time!

Quite often in the past three years, I was asked to take pictures at ceremonies and receptions at the German Department at the University of Vienna. It was one of these occasions when I realised that I could not always catch this special facial expression because I could not focus fast enough. I would have loved to get some weird grimasses of my former teachers, and could not. Therefore, I packed my Canon gear away for good and bought a Nikon F-5 with a couple of AF-S zooms. Late 2001, I added a Fujifilm TX-1 (aka Hasselblad X-Pan) to my arsenal of cameras. This is my first panoramic camera, and also my first rangefinder since the Agfa Carat 4, although I guess the Agfa should be called a rangefinder-point-and-shoot due to the lack of interchangeable lenses. Early in 2003, I bought an old Leica M6; I guess one could say I'm slowly getting a taste for rangefinders. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to use my equipment as much as I would like in 2002, since I got divorced and had to start looking for a new place to stay. (Still no luck, but keep your fingers crossed...) However, starting in Fall, 2002, WFU has given me some opportunity to use my photo skills for them. I'm now instructing students in photography as well as maintaining and photographing the all new Flow House web page, on which you can see some of my students' work together with my own.

A while ago some people who had then just started a literature periodical showed interest in my work, and in July 2000, I officially opened my own business as Press Photographer, freelancing, of course. Some "literary photo work" can be found here. Also, I have added some of my photographs to these sites, which I highly recommend to visit: Leica-Gallery, Fuji Rangefinder Pages and Photo.Net.

Although photography has now changed its status and become a small business for me, I still consider all of my work to be for pleasure. My interests have shifted over the years, from overall travel photography with an "exciting way to see modern architecture", to landscape and nature photography, and recently to people. Maybe I could say that photography has taught me to see; and what I saw, made me an admirer of nature. To share this admiration with many, I have launched this website.