Welcome!
From Chemistry to Business to Art, I have followed different paths in my career. I was born in Cologne, Germany and still live there, but I have also spent a lot of time in London and Jordan, where my family lives.
When I was running my business, we of course did a lot of advertising - trade shows, print, web, video, mailings etc...All the materials we needed were created in house. Not just to save money, but also to be flexible. It is so much easier when you can change and adapt all your leaflets, brochures etc..whenever you feel like changing them, without having to wait until someone does it for you. Sometimes I would even edit my videos live on the trade show, shortening a part of a clip, moving segments around etc...until I had a version that got me the best results from the audience, i.e. the thousands of people flowing past our stands. Our website, our presentation, our photos, our videos - they were like an extension of our team. And your website answers questions and brings in business even when you are asleep. Marketing was not an abstract concept, it was what kept "our fridge full". We could immediately see the difference in response to a mailing if our images and flyer design had improved.
Photography has always been a longterm passion and like most amateurs I taught myself, attended workshops etc...but it was when I used my images for work that my understanding of visual communication improved.
In 2004 I discovered istockphoto and the wonderful community there changed my life. I was able to connect with so many exciting people from all over the world, attended their workshops and made money with my images. The agency invited me into their team and I worked as an istockphoto image inspector and moderator on the German language forum for several years.
Today I teach a workshop on stockphotography at Fotoakademie-Koeln .
In 2013 my journey took a new direction. I became an independent artist and now work with many agencies including blackbox,adobe, twenty20, istock, stocksy, pond5,eyeem, dreamstime, depositphotos and westend61. In addition, I am also learning about video and hope to offer useful video stock as well.
The internet has changed the way we connect with family and friends in a dramatic way and it has also enabled many freelancers and small time entrepreneurs to find customers from around the globe.
We live in exciting times!
Thank you for visiting my website :)
You can also follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cobaltstockcom/169793413171571