I know many people who have stopped looking for themselves in photographs. What might be the reason, because the amount of photos that are produced and shared every day continues to increase. But these are mostly just variations of what is always the same: the same gestures, the same looks, predictable backdrops, especially this photo-smile-as-at-the-push-button. Anyone who has seen five photos no longer needs to concern themselves with the next 1000, they will learn nothing new about this person. But the monotony is not yet the main problem but the falseness of these images. I consider almost everything that is created in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral or the sunset by the sea to be wrong in some way, if only because it depicts the person in learned, alien poses. Most of these photos are forgotten shortly after the end of the taking-viewing-posting ritual. Rightly so.

Often the best photos are those where the people photographed do not even know that they are being photographed at all. No poses, a rich arsenal of gestures, looks, interactions. These are the moments, the images, for which photography was invented and has not lost its potential for new aspects of life.

I myself am not a friend of the special and conspicuous on the street. My interest is not in the grand gestures, my gaze is drawn to the calm, still things. So also more on calm, quiet, thoughtful people. These are also the main heroes of my photographs. I don't know them and I still think I discover a bond with them. Sometimes I will be wrong, sometimes I hope to have portrayed these people in their dignity and to have made something of their nature visible. I then call these photographs street portraits, hoping they are a contribution in the right way.