Bio

Dear reader,

My name is Florian. I am a German-born photographer, writer, and journalist. With Germany as my current home base, I photograph, write, and tell stories. Above all, I love exploring the human condition, bringing to life the little details that explain life and human connections — in foreign cultures around the world as much as in the everyday at home.

Born and raised in the Ruhr Valley in Germany, the path of exploring other cultures and telling stories from foreign countries has always been part of who I am.

An important station on my path so far is my time at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, where I devoted my undergraduate studies to the Political Sciences and Comparative Literature. I discovered my first journalistic hero — Joseph Mitchell of The New Yorker — while writing my senior thesis on his work and the genre of literary journalism.

Those four years also began my travels. I went to New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A. to participate in Yale’s Summer Sessions — an experience that inspired the writer in me and started a bond between me and American culture and society.

My first expedition into the field of international journalism brought me to Accra, Ghana. I spent a month volunteering for a weekly newspaper — including gaining fascinating insights into journalistic practices and the desire to one day be able to travel with the purpose of telling stories and raising awareness of issues the international community usually doesn’t hear of.

I eventually made my way back to Connecticut. At Quinnipiac University I pursued my Journalism masters degree and — in the process — strengthened the bond between the States and me. Apart from confirming that I thrived living and working in a foreign culture, I also began a transition.

Thus far, my medium of choice had been writing. Sure, I had always been taking pictures along the way, but the passion for making pictures began with Quinnipiac’s training on visual storytelling. While my training focused on video and TV skills, I grabbed the chance to start my own personal photography education, which I’ve been continuing ever since.

The design of 21st century journalism as well as inspirational lessons from the masters of freelance international journalism that I stumbled over by reading (and a special book in particular), gave me the final push of courage to take the plunge into the field of international journalism and photography. After completing a foreign correspondent workshop in Prague, it’s now time to start traveling with purpose.