Born in Hamburg, Germany, I discovered photography around 1974 at the Gymnasium Uhlenhorst-Barmbek at the occasion of a photo development room (black & white only) volunteer course-work offering plenty of facilities, paper and time for experimenting. Most of the times my schoolmate Andreas Fecke and me had the room for ourselves. Later, in 1981, I received my first SLR-camera, the Minolta X700, continuing with B&W photography but soon enjoying landscape and nature/macro photography as part of my Landscape Architecture study in Osnabrück. During my master study at the University of Washington in Seattle (1987-1989) I had my first encounter with the Leica M6 during a photo class and got hold of a vintage Leica IIIf from 1950. The teaching professor was an absolute Leica-fan and got me infected by the red-dot-virus. This moment can be considered the real beginning of my affection for this camera.
Again photo development opportunities at the UW led to my first selfmade Leica prints. In December 1996, I bought a second-hand Rolleiflex 2.8 GX in Hamburg which I mainly used – and still do – for shooting middel-format colour slides (6x6cm). In August 2009 I acquired a Leica M8.2, starting with a Elmarit M 2.8/28mm and soon a Summilux M 1.4/50mm (Foto Meister Hamburg-Eppendorf). I live and work as a environmental and food system researcher in Tilburg, the Netherlands (www.susmetro.eu).
