- Working narrative & documentary DP with background in stills photography. Based in London, originally from Austria | 25 credits including award winning feature films, documentaries, music videos and shorts. I love people, original stories and celluloid. -
                                                                                                                                                                    I see my job as a cinematographer to be completely “invisible”, which might be an odd choice of words considering that this a visual artform. What I mean is that I want to give the audience the space and freedom to discover the narrative themselves and build their own understanding whilst subconsciously guiding them through the story using a cohesive visual language that conveys the emotional undertone. I view the audience similarly to children discovering the world for the first time. With my camera work, I take them by the hand, ensuring they are going down the right path whilst still letting them venture in their own terms. This idea of self-determination also goes hand in hand with creating an environment for actors to thrive so that they don’t feel restricted in any way which is imperial to me as a cinematographer, as every choice I make is centred around the performance.

I also firmly believe that every project I take on is a new story to be told with its own distinctive characteristic and visual structure. Having a style in any shape or form fundamentally goes against my understanding of cinematography. I treat every project as something entirely unique and immerse myself in the script to find the right visual grammar for the story. This is actually one of my favorite stages of production - collaborating with the director and “dreaming” together of what the script could become. This intimate collaboration is one of the biggest reasons why I decided to step away from stills photography and go into the moving image - I love working together with talented artists from all sorts of different backgrounds as it allows me to learn and grow alongside these inspiring creatives.  

Despite changing course, I still to this day take a lot of inspiration from stills photography. It gave me a crucial understanding of the importance of camera position in relation to your subject. Moving the camera even just for a few centimetres can change the entire dynamic and rhythm of a scene which also means that we as cinematographer have an immense responsibility to cater exactly what the scene needs, especially in those crucial moments. Another fundamental aspect for me is lighting. I have worked as a lighting technician on over 10 motion picture productions which has taught me the importance of light and how powerful of a tool it is to convey the desired mood. However, it is so much more than that. To me, light is the heart and soul of an image. The way light acts in nature has been programmed into our brains since the day we were born, so it is one of the first things audiences notice and subconsciously evaluate. This goes back to being “invisible” - I use light to inform the audience of the emotional undertone but try to be as “naturalistic” as possible, respecting the environment the characters are in and drawing from motivated sources of light.

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