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Fabian Fischer

A short interview with designer and photographer Fabian Fischer.
“The physical process is part of the artwork..”
Fabian FIscher
Photographer & Designer
Fabian Fischer

Fabian Fischer studied sustainable design at the ecosign / academy for design in cologne after finishing the apprenticeship as a industrial business management assistant. He concentrated on visual communication and photography and now connects both interests in his projects. While working on his diploma he started a job in an advertising agency in cologne where he took a traineeship after finishing academic studies.


Now Fabian works as an art director at WhiteWall – a worldwide famous photo lab – where he continues his attraction to photography and design when designing coffee table books with photo artists or planning exhibitions. Besides this job he constantly works on personal projects. His artistic start with graffiti before his academic studies are still a big influence on his visual language that mostly deals with urban space and objects within this space.

What is it about photography that you love?

I really embrace the fact that photography as a visual language helps me to express myself without using any words. The picture making is like a gate for me to get connection to my inner feelings.

If you had to choose would it be fame or money?

I’ve never had any of both options – so it is hard to choose. I would choose money, film stocks got quite expensive.

What is your favorite movie and why

„The pianist“ from Roman Polanski. I watched the movie with my parents when I was a kid. The images were really painful and hard to handle but in the end they had a great impact on my view to justice and modern politics – especially now. I think it is a cinematic memorial.

How do you see photography in 10 years?

Of course there will be more computer generated images because technology is growing exponentially. I think these images are great to be used in a commercial surrounding. You can easily produce perfect images of anything you just can imagine. But there are a lot of exceptional artists who use cgi to build images with enormous messages – a minority in this field. In the end every image refers to the mother of photographs: the snapshot. That is why there is a huge run on film photography on the other side. The physical process (instead of the digital way of composing a cgi image) is part of the artwork in the real world. Most of the time the image is translated into a digital file by scanning but the process to get this file is kind of fragile but magic!

Is printed magazine dead?

I don’t think this is the case. Maybe there is a reduction but it won’t die. People love to collect physical things.

What is a perfect and what is terrible client experience on assignment?

The perfect assignment:
I had so many graphic design jobs where I worked with lovely people who appreciate my work.
The perfect assignment was to take only one photograph with a large format camera for a huge 4 meter print. Most fun I had with a job: Showing the final frame upside down on the ground glass to the customers was awesome – no one even believed this old camera technic can produce images with so much details and this sharp. The print came out so great, all people involved were really happy with the result – and the payment was appreciative.

The terrible assignment:
Graphic design classic: „make the logo bigger. Much bigger. Still not enough – GIANT!“

Do photographers talk about their work when they meet?

This depends on the reasons why they meet :D I mostly meet photographers to work with them or really to talk about the work we do. I think this is an important way to reflect your work to keep growing.

Are influencers a threat to photographers?

it depends on the reasons why you do photography. When doing photography to make a living – yes, it might be a threat because people with a huge range on social media paradoxically get more credibility than a photographer who doesn’t care about the amount of likes or follower. There is a shift from quality to quantity.
I know great photographers who don’t care about followers and likes because they love what they do. And so I do. It is great to get many likes on a photo – but most of the time these photos are the ones I almost didn’t post.

Fabian Fischer
Cologne based designer & photographer
https://www.fabianfischer.info
Industry
Photography
Location
Cologne, Germany

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