Deutscher Preis für Wissenschaftsfotografie and latest Updates

It’s almost been four weeks ago, that I was awarded the German Price for Science Photography (=Deutscher preis für Wissenschaftsfotografie") for the Reportage Category in der Haus der Wissenschaft here in Bremen. It was a fantastic day with a great ceremony and it was a wonderful feeling to see the winning images hanging on the wall.After an opening talk of Professor Dr. Gerold Wefer from the Marum Institute and some follow-up words by Wolfgang Hess, former chief editor at the Bild der Wissenschaft magazine, Detlef Brendel started to hand over the awards to us three winners:Volker Steger in the single image category,Anita Reinsch in the Macro category andmyself in the photo reportage category, that I won with a series of images depicting my shark research project on the Fiji Islands.After the ceremony, we had some drinks and food while chatting about photography and potential future projects and then went on to a city tour through Bremen.I have said it before, but I will say it gain: I truly feel honored to have received this price and it indeed means a lot to me. I was especially happy that my dad travelled to Bremen to join the ceremony and that my beautiful girlfriend Amanda was also present. I hope, there will be more days like this in my life![su_row][su_column size="1/2"][/su_column] [su_column size="1/2"][/su_column] [/su_row][su_row][su_column size="1/2"][/su_column] [su_column size="1/2"][/su_column] [/su_row]I am surely dedicated and motivated to keep going and keep working for the cause that is a matter of heart for myself: bring back nature into our lives again and make people aware of how crucial it is to live with our planet and to do so sustainably. Mother Earth doesn’t need us to survive, but we as humanity surely depend on her to exist and thrive.

New items in my camera bag - Welcome to the family!

Large amounts of the Price money have already been reinvested. A couple of days ago, I fulfilled and long-lived dream and finally bought a Nikon D810 – an excellent piece of technology. Due to my very time consuming job on the Christmas market now, I haven’t really had the chance to properly test my new baby. I snapped a few images at the market the other day (see one example below) but the real test to the bonmes remains to be done over the christmas days!  Besides that, I have topped up my gear with two new lenses that I have been able to test over the last few weeks – still with my Nikon D7100 – and again, I am confident they will certainly enrich my photographic possibilities in many ways! The Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 D IF-ED and the Nikkor 24mm - 85mm 3.5-4.5 G ED VR. And as a final little present to myself, Amanda and myself got ourselves two tickets to Bali for a six-week trip on this beautiful island. I cannot wait to explore the underwater world with my camera as well as shoot the incredible colorful diversity above land and I am already thinking of several projects for our island time. What better could there be than spending days in magnificent and exciting surroundings with the woman you love and the sun shining? Only thing I wills still have to figure out is how to get around the island with all that luggage I intend to take with me :-DBesides all that news Amanda and I also celebrated moving into our first new flat together, a step - as many of you know - that is a quite exciting one. We love our new place and look forward to many good hours and days here. Let's see how long this place will be our home for and where future paths will lead us!

Ending the Year in the United Kingdom

Christmas is approaching fast and the year 2016 thus ending just as fast. It has been an extraordinary year for me in many ways. More detail on that in my last post for 2016 with a review on my favorited moments and photos over the last 365 days is still ahead. I’ll be spending the Christmas days with my family in Berlin and then fly over to England’s south just after to celebrate with Amanda’s family before returning to Bremen on the 31st. I have big plans for the coming year and January is supposed to be a very productive month. I intend to finish off the manuscript for my work in Fiji and subsequently work on my PhD Proposal to start a crowdfunding campaign and the whole fund collecting process. Looking forward to the coming months and years! Until then, have a wonderful time everyone, stay positive and of course: keep dreaming!