Christian Bärnthaler

Christian Bärnthaler Biography

Austria, born 1986

After secondary school, apprenticeship as a hotel and catering assistant, self-employed restaurateur since 2019 and self-employed photographer since 2021.

I grew up in Bad St. Leonhard in the Lavanttal. When I was 10, I stole my father's camera and went hunting for pictures on my own. In 2019 I applied at the Academy for Applied Photography in Graz. Suddenly people were talking about images and feelings and how you can visualize your innermost being. So I switched from digital to analog. I was now able to develop the images myself and work with them, enlarge them and influence them. Nothing plastic and nothing embellished. Nothing sleek or made up. I don't retouch or edit anything.

Now I mostly working with wet plate technology. To do this, I mix my own chemistry and am the master of contrast, gray scale and color cast. This type of photography brings me deceleration and creative freedom from the root to the finished image.