I think this was the hardest part when creating my website. Not only because I struggled to find a picture of myself...I am usually the one taking them, but also because my biography is a little... hard to summarise haha.

​

Long story short: I studied Sociology and Cultural Studies in my hometown Munich, with a focus on Islam and Buddhism, and moved to Amsterdam in 2020 to do my Master's at the Faculty of Law in International Crime & Conflict, focusing particularly on war and terrorism, learning several languages and cool skills.

And yes, somehow I became a full-time photographer.

​

How come?

​

I have been obsessed with taking pictures for as long as I can remember. At seven, I was already stealing my parents' camera to take portraits of everyone and carrying it with me whenever we travelled.

When I turned 12, my parents gave me a Nikon D3200, my first love. Paired with an 85mm lens, I started experimenting with documentary photography and somehow became my school's photographer, taking the annual portraits and staff pictures.

At 18, I spent 100 days travelling through the Himalayas, Bhutan, India and Vietnam with my camera. People even started buying photographs from that trip afterwards, but somehow it still didn't occur to me that this could actually become my profession.

Then life went in a different direction.

I started university in 2017 and, for several years, my camera mostly stayed in the cabinet. Until Christmas 2021, when my apartment in Amsterdam was broken into and my camera was stolen.

It sounds strange, but losing it made me realise how lost I felt without having a camera close to me.

​

Something changed after that.

​

While finishing my Master's thesis, people started approaching me and asking whether I still took portraits. I was preparing to continue into the field I had studied, but I began taking on shoots on the side and slowly felt that old fire coming back.

One day, I got on my bike, rode to a camera shop in Amsterdam and spent my savings on a professional Nikon and, of course, another 85mm.

But Mexico was what finally did it.

I spent three weeks travelling there with my camera, meeting and photographing people along the way. I remember the happiness I felt incredibly clearly. Several of the people I met kept asking me why on earth I wasn't doing this professionally.

​

Eventually I stopped having a good answer.

​

So, standing on a stone somewhere in Mexico City trying to get enough mobile reception, I sent the email to officially open my photography business.

I couldn't wait until I got home.

The fire was back.

​

And somewhere along the way, the two worlds did start to meet.

​

When I first wrote this page, I said that one day I hoped to combine my academic background with photography ... to use the camera to explore people and places while understanding something about the cultural and social context around them.

I think I'm beginning to understand that this was the point all along.

Nobody ever reacted emotionally to one of my academic papers. But when I came back from somewhere with photographs and the stories of the people I'd met, people stopped. They asked questions. They felt something. They wanted to know more.

And that still fascinates me.

My camera has since taken me into very different worlds: back to Bhutan, which has become an ongoing part of my work; into communities across Africa, Asia, Europe and the US; and into music and culture, photographing and working around artists including the American music ecosystem and projects surrounding the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.

I love that one day I can be sitting with someone in a remote place hearing about a tradition that has existed for generations, and another day find myself backstage, on a tour bus, in a studio or in the middle of a completely different community.

​

​

Beyond the single photograph

​

Over the past few years, my practice has naturally moved further into documentary storytelling and art.

Together with Renée Waters, I co-founded WeAreEvents, initially from a very simple belief that artists shouldn't always be the last people in the room to benefit from the culture they help create.

Today, we develop projects that bring artists, institutions and communities together and create the circumstances for unexpected stories and collaborations to happen.

That work has taken us from Amsterdam to the United States, including helping bring together the Gumball 3000 Foundation and John Lennon Educational Tour Bus in New Orleans, where young people were given access to professional creative tools and the opportunity to make something of their own.

At the same time, my photography has started moving beyond the photograph itself.

My collaboration with Mexican painter Rey Jaffet, for example, began with a portrait I made of a young girl in Bhutan. Rey later painted directly onto the photograph, turning it into Soul Play, a collaborative artwork now exhibited as part of Together in Spirit in Amsterdam.

And increasingly, I find myself wanting to stay with stories for longer.

Not just take the portrait and leave, but understand the person, the community, the culture and everything happening outside the frame.

​

So, what do I actually photograph?

​

People.

Famous people. People you've never heard of. Artists, entrepreneurs, families, communities and occasionally complete strangers who let me into their world for a little while.

I still love a beautifully lit portrait as much as I did when I was twelve years old with that first 85mm.

But what I love most is what happens before I press the shutter: earning enough trust for somebody to let me see something real.

Whether that's somewhere in Bhutan, backstage with an artist or simply on the streets of Amsterdam, I live for making people feel seen and for telling stories that might make someone else stop and feel something too.

​

And I would love to hear yours.

​

Curious or have a project in mind? Shoot me a message