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Jonas Hausmann
@jonashausmann_
Photographer based in Germany
During my childhood, I spent many vacations in the Alps with my family. Even then I was thrilled by the special beauty of the mountains. To be honest, however, back then it was some motivation needed to make me go on hikes. At that time I collected stamps from mountain cabins and summit crosses. Later I was rewarded with small badges in exchange for those. My father always had a camera with him on those hikes, but most of the time, I was the one who filled the memory card, which was very small at that time, with our memories.
At the age of 14, I scraped together my savings and bought my first SLR camera, a Canon 500D. I tried out a lot without really understanding the context of photography at all. From then on, photography always accompanied me as a small hobby, but one in which I invested little time. During the pandemic, I discovered photography in a different manner and it grew into something much bigger. In the summer of 2020, I took a road trip with my girlfriend through the iconic Dolomites in my own car, where we also stayed overnight. Away from the restless and stressful everyday life, I learned to love again to spend my time in nature. This trip reignited my passion for outdoor and landscape photography and made it what it is today. It was also on that trip where the idea of publishing my images, instead of keeping them to myself on my hard drives, was born.
"From then on, my professional photography career began to take shape."
Nowadays it’s very easy to share your work with many other people via social networks. In my opinion, when trying to build a career as a visual creator or actually any other profession, you should definitely take advantage of that. Create, but also share. The most challenging part is probably to build your own brand. My only advice here is to experiment a lot to find out what exactly you are passionate about. Then the next step would be to improve it with the intention of becoming an expert. In my opinion, it is important to always stay true to yourself and your work and not to pretend.
As a graduated communication designer it is very important for me to develop clear communication around brands. This professional background makes it possible for me to create an environment and a story that integrates the client’s product or service. By experience, I have learned to prepare each project in a very structured way and to create a clear thread of visual communication. I especially enjoy projects that lead to special places or allow collaboration with extraordinary people.
It’s also good to know your work and know what you are good at. Sometimes, you first need to hear this from others. I am often told that my way of communicating through images and videos always tells a story and arouses emotions in the viewer. I also often hear that my images have a high recognition effect due to my choice of special perspectives. I always try to find and capture unusual, special angles. I would also call my image style very cinematographic, as I work with somewhat desaturated colors and individual lighting moods.
I never claimed an image to be “the one” before, but there is one shot I took in Madeira that made me say it’s the best shot of my career so far. As soon as I pressed the shutter, I knew it. I would say that I am a very self-critical person who always identifies the potential for improvement, but this shot did it for me. The combination of color, shape, and composition blew me right away. On top of that, I had to visit this place three times to finally find those perfect conditions and it’s been so worth it! For the final result, all that was left was choosing the crop, applying one of my own presets, and then manually adjusting it in Adobe Lightroom. At the very end, I made some sine adjustments to colors and cleaned distracting objects in Photoshop.
My style and way of translating stories from businesses or people to visuals is something that partly comes from my education in Communication Design, partly from who I am, and partly from my experiences. You will find your uniqueness and strengths if you be yourself, reflect on your work, listen to what others tell you, evaluate, and if you are not afraid to say you are good at something. Having a healthy level of confidence is a big part of doing a good job and building a brand for yourself too.
I love the idea of telling stories through my photographs and letting others feel this adventure – let them be part of it. Together with the fact that I can capture outstanding moments for eternity, this is what makes photography so fulfilling to me. Videography is fulfilling and something that I am working on and learning more about at this moment. I already explored filming using my father’s camera and the video function of my own camera, but I will certainly pursue the field of videography much further and there is a lot to come.
Shooting and filming in nature add another dimension to my passion and every time I am outdoors, I calm down and find enthusiasm and peace at the same time. Last summer I went on another road trip through the Italian Dolomites. Since I traveled alone, slept in my car, and was almost exclusively in nature, I got the chance to truly enter a state of mindfulness and in connection with nature. I appreciate it immensely to be able to experience this beauty. I have recognized the need to protect it even more and I also learned that it takes much less than the standard I am used to, for me to be happy.
Perhaps even the most essential lesson I got to learn while traveling, is that often the most impressive and best moments arise on the way to the places you have planned to visit. It’s always worth giving every step of your journey a chance to surprise you and paying every step as much attention as the destination itself. This usually even leads to much better results.
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