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Craig March 21st, 2008

Time for another installment from the featured photographer series. This time we have Austria’s Michael Geier. Michael is currently based in Taiwan and is the man behind the Discover Formosa website. Michael has a background in multimedia and has been involved in photography since he was a school student. Read on to hear his answers to a few questions and to see some of his work.

1. What is your general background?
That’s a bit complicated actually. Well, I graduated in electrical engineering and then started at Sony DADC, the worlds biggest producer of optical storage media (DVD, CD, etc.). I began there as a technician but as multimedia started to become popular I was transferred to do multimedia design and programming. The transformation started from technician to more creative work.
After that I freelanced for several companies in different fields of Media, PR and marketing from just doing the programming to actually holding a highend camera or doing the light, sound and video for a rock and pop coverband. I even owned a multimedia company for a while back in Austria where I got involved in everything from screen to print and media. I learned a lot through this.
I was even a teacher, the youngest at that time, at the Advertisment Design Academy in Salzburg.
Before I started to do more in photography here (Taiwan) I even worked in QC for an agency for marketing tools which means I go to China and check stuff like caps, t-shirts, etc.
So I guess it’s kind of a strange way I went till now.

2. How long have you been taking photos?
I was shooting around since I was a kid but just with some low end cameras and just for fun. I had a wonderful experience at a school camp where we could decide what to do, so I decided photography and they gave us some old film cameras and a topic and we were running around and tried things out. The great thing was that they gave us black&white films and the cameras even had filters which they explained. We even had a darkroom there and developed the photos ourselves which was great fun.
I restarted now on a digital DSLR 9 months ago, so I guess thats what you could call the real starting point even if it was more just for fun.

3. What equipment do you use? (This includes computer programs and/or darkroom equipment).
I am using a Canon 400D DSLR with various lenses, not yet the expensive ones (18-55mm f/3.5-5.6, 75-300mm f/4-5.6, 50mm f/1.8), a pol filter and a tripod plus external flash for some events. Recently I had some studio shots for a fitness equipment company where I had some rented light and flash equipment but I don’t own anything like that yet.
In the postproduction I usually just use Adobe Lightroom now and sometimes a bit of Photoshop. I just have
the old Version 7 but want to upgrade sooner or later, just to take more advantage of the combination of Lightroom and Photoshop.

4. What’s your preferred photographic subject(s)?
I started with landscape and that was my primary interest for a while, all my equipment was basically set for this and I loved to be out in the nature and find nice spots and show them to the people. But I picked up more interest in other areas through the latest experiences with events and other areas. I guess I am a bit like a kid infront of the Christmas tree with all the presents below and just want to try out everything at the same time now.

5. Do you have a photographic “vision” and what is it?
That’s a really tought question, I just like to show things which others sometimes don’t see, to point out things and capture the right moments. Basically I am happy if my photos somehow entertain people at least a bit, make them smile or wonder for a second or two.

6. Who/What are your photographic influences, if any?
Till now most of my influences where just from the experiences I had, the people I worked with in the different areas and that I met all over the world. I guess I try to always learn a bit from everywhere, no matter what it is or if it is directly related.

7. How would you describe your photographic style, and how has it evolved over the years?
I don’t think I have a real style yet, I am more still on a kind of experimental journey to find it.  I liked to take very contrasting strong captures of live situations but I wouldn’t call that my style yet.

8. What is your system for backing up digital files?
I got more into this problem with the amount of photos I am taking right now, so I had to go off from just having
a small folder somewhere on the local hard disk. I also get more requests for photos now, so I need to find them
again in the original form. I am currently using an external harddrive with 500GB which I regularly backup on DVD-R,
usually on two copies. I guess in the future I will have to start to make backups from the backup DVD’s but that’s
still not yet a problem.

9. What is your general “workflow” like?
I am downloading the files through a card reader and storing them on the harddisk, than I import them into Lightroom,
make a preselection and do some adjustments to the better shots and export them in high-res. Some of these are uploaded
to a stock photography page and some are additonally rendered out in low-res and uploaded on my flickr account or
on my webpage which I just started to build up.

10. Do you prefer to shoot RAW or JPG and why?
I started to shoot everything in RAW a while ago when I also started with Lightroom. It simply gives me more control
over the images and I even can use the same image and create different views, like converting them into b&w or
set different aspects regarding what I want to point out. It is also a must for the commercial projects I started
to do recently.

11. Anything else you want to say.
Right now I am having a lot of fun and the whole photography got it’s own dynamic recently so it became partly a job
out from just a fun hobby. People seem to like my photos and I was kind of forced into the whole thing, not that I
would mind that. It’s fun to see the own photos in newspapers like the Taipei Times or the China Post, have them
published around the world in a newsletter of the Kenwood company or shown on Taiwan Picture of the day and a lot
of different webpages. It is nice to be approached from magazines and even be allowed to give an interview like this,
compared to the other guys you had here I am just a tiny fish in the big pound.
Still,  fun is the main part of it and trying to make people smile or wonder for a moment, entertain them a bit and share something and if it even brings something back too than it’s even better.

So that brings us to the end of the interview. Many thanks Michael for taking part.

Tags: "Michael Geier", interview, Photographers, Photos, Shutterbugs, Taiwan

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