Photographer of the year

I still can’t believe it:
I actually won “Photographer of the Year” in the “urban landscape / architecture” category at the 35 Awards.
Since fine art architecture photography is my greatest passion, this award means a lot to me. It is an incredible honor for me to have won this award in this great competition. HERE you can check out my profile on the award page.

The Award

Here is my certificate with all the details about the contest and my nominations:

In addition to the award for photographer of the year, I made the 2nd place in the category “urban landscape / architecture” with one of my photos. I know – the second winner is the first loser. But since I made the 2nd place out of a total of 25,693 submitted pictures, I turn a blind eye again 😉

I received the award for photographer of the year with a series of 4 of my fine art architecture photos.
I submitted the following photos as a series:

Doha – Doha city fine art architecture

I was in Doha in early 2022 to photograph 4 properties for DAMAC. Since I have never been to Doha before, I scheduled an extra day for this trip to explore the city and take fine art architecture photos for my portfolio.
This picture was taken in Doha West Bay and shows the variety of architecture that can be found in Doha in a very small space.

Abu Dhabi – Andaz Capital Gate

This photo was taken on my trip to Abu Dhabi in January 2023. This fine art photo, by the way, was the first photo I took on this trip shortly after arriving in the early morning hours. The Andaz Capital Gate is home to the beautiful Hyatt Hotel, which offers guests a view of all of Abu Dhabi. The building is 160m high and has 35 floors and a heli-pad on the roof. With a slope of 18 degrees (!!!), it is the building with the largest slope in the world. By comparison, the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” has a slope of only 3.97 degrees. In my fine art architecture photos, I like to show the directly surrounding buildings in addition to my main object, in order to integrate the immediate surroundings into my work. Unfortunately, right next to the Andaz Capital Gate is a military building. Photographing military installations or government buildings is strictly forbidden in the United Arab Emirates – so I had to limit my point of view and the angle of view accordingly for this photo.

Dubai – the Burj Khalifa as fine art architecture work

This photo was taken spontaneously when I walked along the promenade at Burj Kalifa Lake. I usually walk 1-2 times around the building I want to photograph to find perspectives I didn’t find on google maps, if necessary. In this case, it was an absolute bull’s eye. From a certain angle, the lines of the canopies folded around the Burj Khalifa like an organic frame. At the same time, the incredible, syrreal dimension of this structure is underlined by the view from below to above.

Doha – Lusail Twin Towers

Just like the Doha City picture, this picture was taken on my day off after my photoshoot for DAMAC. Special feature? Yes – it’s one of the few photos I post in color. The reason…respectively the reasons are: First, I like the colors incredibly. At the same time, they help to understand the spatial dimensions of the Lusail Twin Towers. On top of that, I think the color gives this structure a playful attribute and fits the overall concept.
The second, and for me very significant reason, is that the different colors of the towers represent the different nationalities that live in Doha. The colors represent the peaceful coexistence of the multi-cultural population.

In the next few days I will publish another blog post about my trip to Abu Dhabi and my fine art architecture photos of this fantastic city. If you like my work you can visit HERE the gallery with more fine art photos of me.

And HERE you can find my awards won so far

Many greetings and see you soon,
Tobi

I am so happy and still in disbelief: I am one of the winners of the 7th 35Awards photography contest. I participated in the category „urban landscape“ with 4 of my black and white fine art photos. I would have never thought that I would be honoured in any way in such a huge competition of photographers. Overall there were more than 124.000 photographers in the competition.
Especially with my more or less „exotic“ black and white fine art photography.

My Results in the competition

I was surprised when I opened my certificate file as it shows 7 of my achievements in this contest.
1: One of my photos will be displayed in the catalogue of the contest
2: I made it under the top 100 photographers of the overall competition (overall more than 124.000 from 174 countries participated in this contest)
3: I made the 2nd place in the category „urban landscape“
4: I am under the Top 35 photographers from Germany
5: I am in the top 10 of Berlin
6: My photos made it into the top 35 urban landscape nomination
7: All of the photos I submitted reached the 3rd and final stage of the voting process

Here is the official certificate I received from the 35Awards-Jury with some more information.

The stories behind the images

I would like to tell you something about the photos that I submitted and some stories behind them:
The „oldest“ one of the series I submitted is the photo of the „Tempodrom“ in Berlin. I remember it very well when I took this photo. I was in a terrible mood. I was scared. I was afraid about the future. I was worried basically about everything in my life.
It was the beginning of the Covid Pandemic. I knew that there would be no job for me as a photographer in the near future. I had no idea how things would work out; if things would work out. I felt like it was a mistake to leave my 9 to 5 job years ago as all of a sudden I was falling into a deep hole with no bottom. When I left my 9 to 5 job, I promised myself to dedicate the rest of my life to photography – no matter what. I remembered that promise and took the following decision: Use every second (and acceptable weather conditions) before the first Lockdown. Walk through Berlin and take as many long exposure photos as possible. Use the time during the Lockdown at home to process these photos to black and white fine art photos. Learn as much as possible about post processing, photoshop, masking etc. during the Lockdown when going outside is restricted / not allowd. And that’s what I did. My goal was to use the terrible pandemic to become a better black and white fine art photographer.
To make a long story short: This is one of my first more or less professional black and white fine art photos. This photo was taken during really dark days in a mindset of uncertainty. This makes this photo extremely special to me on a personal level. The fact that this photo got the recognition in the 35Awards contest means the world to me.

The next photo ist the „Spielbank“ in Berlin. I took this photo between Lockdowns. It resided on my laptop in a folder called „walking with no plan through Berlin“ for a while. Somehow it intrigud me every once in a while when I saw it. And one day I sat down, remembered the situation when I took the shot and translated that mood into my black and white fine art processing. As you can see, this photo has the same stylistic elements as the Tempodrom-photo. They belong together in my head as they fall under the umbrella „Covid Pandemic“. I remember that I was listening to music and almost reached a mindset of trance and meditation while processing this image. Suddenly it was done and I couldn’t really remember very much of the post processing work (and no – there were no drugs / illegal substances involved)! Here is the final result:

The 3rd photo I sumitted was taken in the Olympic Village in Barcelona. To be precise: It is the „Torre Telefónica“ by the mastermind architect Santiago Calatrava. I was on vacation when taking this photo and I planned this photo ahead of time. I had the exact shooting angle and the visualisation of my black and white fine art processing in my head already before I took this photo. I love the shape of the tower. I love the background elements and the stairs in the foreground. What I admire and love the most however is when ordinary things are executed in a tasteful extraordinary way. This tower is – in my opinion – an architect’s way to tell a city „I love you“. Communication towers are usually not as beautiful (they could have put up some rusty antennas). But this tower – embedded in this surrounding is an hommage to a city, a spirit and an idea. It took me a long time to process this image due to the fine structures and masks / selections. As well, when I have a vision for a photo even before taking a photo, the black and white post processing takes longer.

And last but not least – the youngest photo of the series I submitted for the contest. I took it in the beginning of the year in Doha.
I was hired as Immobilienfotografen-berlin to take interior and exterior photos of 3 properties for DAMAC. When planning my trip and the shooting for DAMAC I added one extra day that I could use to take photos for my black and white fine art photography portfolio. Luckily my architecture shooting went according to my plan and I really had one day for my fine art photography. One of the photos I took during that day has the title „desert balance“. I stood on desert sand when I took it and I used the desert sand as a foreground element of the photo. The main element of the photo are the so called „Lusail Twin Towers“. They seem to defy gravity; inviting the viewer to dance with them. In the background behind the Twin towers you see the bright tip of the „Katara Towers“. This contrast between desert and high tech was extremely intriguing to me.
I consider „desert balance“ as the happy end of this series.

In case you want to see the site and more details of the 35 Awards – click HERE

If you’d like to see more of my personal fine art work – click HERE

Thanks for reading all the way to the end – I hope it was interesting for you to get some background info. Feel free to send me a message with some feedback or let me know if you want me to write about a specific topic in my next blogpost.

Thanks a lot & stay tuned,
Tobi