My photography: Composition, design and creative storytelling. A personal view with a particular focus and multifaceted perspectives on life.
I am not a Pro. I am just an enthusiast.
It's like I (Nicki) am having a long-distance love affair with photography, heated by times, cooling off when departing, but always present. Fact is it has never been the only love in my life (see background below and About us). But I am delighted to see how it is all coming together now. I am enthusiastic, we are on a mission.
My photography
I love composition and design - and, of course, storytelling and will use this as my base for photography to open hearts and create interest in exploring new horizons – physically or virtually. My photos support my writing and vice versa; both are rooted in the desire to create awareness for the beauty and weirdness of our (underwater) world, introducing species and their habitats as well as destinations, peaking interest in diving and the protection of fragile ecosystems, highlighting connections within these systems as well as to human behaviour. We form nature, yet we are part of it.
Composition, design and storytelling elsewhere
Travel, nature and wildlife photos are integrated into the English as well as the German blog (see entries listed at the bottom of the page). Underwater photography has its own special mission to grow into or me growing into it. I started to set up collections featuring photography on land as well as underwater to which I continuously add more photos:
Background: My love-affair with photography
Photography fascinated me already early on in life. I loved the old black and white photos of my parents and oldest brother and got my first camera when I was nine years old. I mainly remember running after butterflies and harassing my family. Together with my best teenage friend, I explored the possibilities to stage and present ourselves in a different light. However, we didn't even think of sharing the results with others! I joined the photography club in school and learnt how to use a SLR and how to develop pictures in a dark room. Pretty motivated I bought my first SLR camera, an Olympus - second-hand, of course. National geographic and other magazines as well as travel and nature documentaries on TV created a longing to see the world and bring stories home. Travelling and working abroad opened up new horizons and stay one of my inspirations until today, but was also separated me from my love affair for a while (more in My long way to underwater photography).
Only when I had finished my studies and worked at the NGO with the beautiful name WEED (World Economy, Ecology and Development e. V.) I started to take some classes at the Photo Centrum in Berlin Kreuzberg. It felt so good to get back in touch with that part of me and highly motivated I bought my first DSLR camera (Pentax KR1) and managed to integrate some photography into my following NGO work and simply enjoyed playing around and discovering the possibilities of digital photography for myself.
When I started diving in the tropics in 2011 it felt like a whole new universe or maybe another dimension revealed itself (My long way to underwater photography). I followed my heart and used photography to illustrate the stories I was sending home to let family and friends see what our lives looked like on land. To take them with us into our underwater realm I luckily could share Yoeri's beautiful clips.
My photography with focus on composition, design and creative storytelling is also embedded in other parts of the website.
Selection of blog entries
in English as well as in German featuring picture galleries from around the world.
Ambon scorpionfish: A shaggy Elvis
Just like Elvis, only with “hair” towards both sides of the head. That’s one of the pictures that comes to my mind looking at an ambon scorpionfish (Pteroidichthys amboinensi). Unlike on Elvis, the information that can be found online on this beautiful species is rather slim though. Shaggy style to […]
Warum ich tauchen liebe
Ich war mir sicher, dass ich tauchen lieben würde, denn nur im Wasser könnte ich das Gefühl des Fliegens aus meinen Träumen erleben (Wie ich zum tauchen kam). Davon war ich überzeugt und so ist es gekommen. Seitdem ist es nur noch besser geworden. Die Sucht des Tauchens Schwerelosigkeit und […]
Road trip to capture the highlights of East Bali
Once upon a time, before the corona virus had officially reached the local population of Bali, there was a window of opportunity to explore spots usually overrun by tourists. That’s why in mid March we went on a road trip to capture the highlights of East Bali. It’s all about […]
Devil scorpionfish: Sinister style with venom
Our next candidate of the group of ambush predators presented in “They got the look” is the devil scorpionfish a.k.a. false stonefish presenting its sinister style with venom. In general, we don’t think it is very nice to call somebody or something false. This fish is pretty real and has […]
Let’s talk scientific! Pictures and classifications of marine life
Over the last weeks we posted pictures with scientific explanations on classifications of marine life on Instagram and Facebook. As not everybody is (regularly) on social media, I am happily putting it all together in one post now: Let’s talk scientific! Let’s talk scientific! Tiger cowrie When looking only at the […]
Keep your plastic and clean up the rest
Plastic is on our mind. Every high tide leaves behind a line of plastic on the beach of Amed. Every heavy rain shower washes half burned or openly collected rubbish from the settlements and streets into fields and streams, distributed by the wind, animals and more rain, eventually, most it […]
Muck diving: Schätze im Schlamm und Müll
Spielen im Schlamm ruft bei mir nicht nur freudige Kindheitserinnerungen wach, sondern wird mit mit „muck diving” gerade glücklich gelebt. Während die balinesischen Kinder lachend und kreischend in den riesigen Pfützen neben und auf der Straße herum planschen, legen wir dafür jedoch unsere Tauchausrüstung an, um nach Schätzen im Schlamm […]
Underwater carnival in Amed, Bali
It is carnival Monday: Alaaf! As that’s the expression, sort of hurray, that is used in the area around Colonge in Germany as well as Maastricht in the Netherlands, we stick to that regional greeting. Even though we are not big fans of the actual celebrations, we had planned our […]
Pictures as cards: Thoughts, quotes and affirmations
The collection „Warm regards“ keeps on growing and is featuring pictures that have been turned into cards (greeting cards, postcards or whatever else you’d like to call them) featuring my own words and thoughts as well as quotes and affirmations to inspire and reinforce positive thinking. Pictures as cards I: […]
Im Rhythmus der Tropen
Dem frühen Vogel seien alle seine Würmer in der Morgenstund gegönnt, direkt nach dem Aufstehen ist mir weder nach Essen noch Goldsuche zumute. Morgens brauche ich meine Ruhe, um gut in den Tag zu starten. Dabei war mir die tatsächliche Uhrzeit lange Zeit ziemlich schnuppe. Wenn der Morgen graut Der […]