Outdoor Photography

February 2018 Outdoor Photography 21

He goes on to describe that, despite the fact that

offi ce life was ‘sucking out my soul’, there was a

four-week break in which he intended to catch

a few waves. Fate intervened in the form of an

accident that kept him out of the water. ‘I was

sitting there with three weeks left of my holiday,

bored out of my mind, so I picked up the camera

and mucked around with it.’

Christian says that looking back on it he

‘really enjoyed the process of making images’

and clearly remembers his sister’s positive

reaction to the results. ‘I wondered if these

pictures were really any good, or if they were

just a bit better than other people’s because

I was more interested in how to do it.’ Despite

his admission that ‘this is when the passion

started’, Christian still can’t quite bring himself

to believe that he ever thought photography

could be a proper replacement for surfi ng.

‘Surfi ng is one of the greatest things you can

do – and defi nitely the most fun – but suddenly

I found photography was just as much fun.’

There were bumps on the road ahead, though.

Christian quickly became an offi cial photographer

at work, followed by a stint running a video store

with his sister ‘while bumming around and

surfi ng.’ The video enterprise came to an end

leaving him ‘without skills, training or a

university education.’ This was when he

remembered the Rolleifl ex and took the creative

decision that he’d shoot black & white landscapes.

‘That would be my thing. That’s how it started.

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