Both my grandparents were painters/musicians/translators. My mother was a fashion designer. She has always kept piles of drapery in our home. My father was a passionate amateur photographer in black and white. Having grown up in an atmosphere where oil colours and their odour, playing the piano, composing music, and a love for good literature went without saying, painting, stitching and experi- menting with material was as natural for me as eating. When I was ten or eleven years old, I was given my first camera, a Kodak Instamatic. Thinking of it, I can still feel its cheap, light, square-cut body in my hands. After studying graphic design at the Akademie U5, I studied painting and graphic arts at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich under Daniel Spoerri and Heinz Butz, and philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, of The Society of Jesus. While studying, I assisted the Swiss fashion photographer Peter Knapp in his studio in Paris. Since then, I have worked as a Munich (Germany) based photographer and journalist.