Alexander von Wiedenbeck
photographer, writer & creative for the story that has to be told
A little girl brushes her teeth on a bucket of rainwater in a cemetery in the Philippines. A woman in northern Uganda calls for a fight against the oppression of women’s rights. Four cheerleaders rehearse their performance on Santa Monica Beach in California. A Lamborghini Murciélago drives at over 300 km/h over the Circuito de Navarra in Spain and a flock of birds, in the shape of an indicated heart, over the dunes on the west beach of the island of Sylt. Five moments that could hardly be more different and further apart, but two essential things unite these photographs – the real life & the photographer Alexander von Wiedenbeck.
Born and raised in a small village in the Bavarian province in the early 1980s, he began photography as an autodidact within the advertising agency he founded and managed in the at the begin of the 2000s. But his view of the essentials has constantly evolved and changed over the years. An important key moment in this development was attending a lecture by the photographer Peter Lindbergh in 2010, who philosophized about the past and reviewed the shared experiences from the 80s and 90s together with Jim Rakete. At that time it was a decisive and formative moment for Alexander von Wiedenbeck, because very soon and especially after his non-profit photo series and charity exhibition about the cemetery & dumpsite children on the Philippines, Alexander discovered a photography away from the artificial and sometimes over-retouched advertising world and decided to take a path towards “real” photography, with a focus on telling unadulterated & authentic stories. Since then he has been photographing reportages, editorials, portraits & campaigns and tells stories around the world, be it as commissioned work for established brands or magazines, or through his personal projects.
Another groundbreaking decision just a few years later was the return to a tool that required the photographer’s full attention – a Leica M Monochrom. Not only because of the entirely manual technology, in which the photographer still has to be photographer and has to specify every single setting such as aperture, exposure time and ISO value himself, this was also the world’s first digital camera with a monochrome sensor, which does not even allow the opportunity of color. To this day, the photographer relies on this reduced camera technology and even one step further, since 2022 he has also been taking photos again with an analogue Leica M6 and developing the photographs himself in the specially created darkroom – a further return to the essentials of the medium and a homage to the great masters of photography from the past.
A concrete genre of the photographer is deliberately not definable. He photographs the moments of everyday life, whose attention he cannot evade, regardless of where and what gets his focus. That is what is special for him, the diversity of our world, the wide variety of interests and living conditions. All our passions, hopes but also worries make life so exciting and allow us to discover something new almost every day. Always as a silent observer of this multifaceted world and attentive to the here and now, Alexander does not think in fixed categories. From classic street photography, reportages, nature to planned portraits and editorials, he let the moments pass in their uniqueness and as a kind of voyeur on the edge of the scenery, he decides to press the shutter button… or even not.
Alexander’s photography – reduced to the essentials – today is focused exclusively on capturing authentic moments as well as creating unusual, amazing photographs. Telling great and lasting photo stories with a feeling, with a deeper insight into the truth behind, is perhaps what is special about his photographs.
Exhibitions, Books & Awards
In addition to various awards such as at the tifa – Tokyo International Photo Award, or at the GoSee Award, his photo series have also been shown in more than 20 solo exhibitions around the world. Among others at the BACC in Bangkok, the inatura Museum in Dornbirn b. Bregenz, the Weltmuseum Wien, the Gotischer Kasten in Eggenfelden, as well as in established houses of art in Germany. In 2022 he received the renowned titel of the „Inselkünstler 2022“ for his photographic journey WATTENRUH on the german island Sylt, which was shown in an exhibition in the Gallery of the City „Alte Post“ in Westerland. Between 2014 and 2024 he had 19 solo and 10 group exhibitions and published six photo books and exhibition catalogs.
Clients, Publications & Personalities (selected)
Porsche, Nissan, Leica Camera, Stern Magazine, Georg et Arend, Karin Fraidenraij Knitwear, Mika Amaro, Pixel Magazine, Sylt en Vogue, Superior Magazine, Matador Magazine, Gold Rush Rally, Reiter Engineering, Blancpain Endurance, Isuzu, Thyssen Krupp, Borbet, Aktionsgruppe Kinder in Not e.V., CARE Austria, Marketing Manufaktur, breu+eckmeier, Just Imagine, Format Sixtyseven, Jurek Riegler (Musician), Stephan Hinz (Musician), Genny Miliano (Actress), Sandra Pires (Singer), Georg Hackl (Athlete), Davenport (Musicians), Nina de Lianin (Actress & Singer), Chima (Singer), …
For supporting the artistic development of photography he is a member of C/O Berlin Friends e.V. since 2014 and art director of the Kulturverein Eggenfelden e.V. since 2019. Since 2024, he has officially been one of only two dozen selected referent in the renowned Leica Academy, which has been established for more than 90 years.
Referent at