Tiny People, Vast Landscapes: Why My Photos Look the Way They Do
During an interview with a respected German magazine, the journalist paused mid-conversation and asked something I’d never really stopped to think about:
“There aren’t many people in your photos. And when they appear, they’re really small — like specks. Why is that?”
It was a good question.
And the answer, like most honest things, isn’t one-size-fits-all.
The truth is: I’m always there in my photos — not in front of the camera, but behind it. I shoot with presence. And part of that presence involves imagining what (and who) exists beyond the frame.
When I photograph a building, for instance, I think about all the people inside it — even if you can’t see a single face. I picture quiet lives unfolding behind those windows. When I shoot the ocean, I imagine the entire world beneath the water: unpredictable, invisible, full of life.
This way of seeing didn’t come from nowhere. I studied architecture in college, and I’ve always been drawn to scale, space, and the relationship between humans and the environments they build or inhabit. Showing people as small figures isn’t about absence — it’s about context.
Tiny people in big landscapes create scale. But more than that, they create stories.
Behind the camera, beyond the obvious
My work isn’t about showing people directly — it’s about the quiet suggestion of their existence.
Buildings as imagined lives
I don’t just see structures. I see rooms, stories, and lives unfolding inside them.
Oceans as hidden worlds
The surface is never the whole story. Beneath the waterline, I imagine motion, silence, and the unknown.
Tiny figures, big meaning
When people appear as small dots in my images, it’s not to minimize them. It’s to give scale to everything around them — and sometimes, to say more by showing less.
So next time you see one of my photos, don’t just look at what’s visible. Try to sense what’s implied. That’s where the real stories live.
