“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.”

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man, 2014

Portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man, 2014

I was born in 1974 in Stuttgart, have lived in Berlin from 1996 through 2020, and have recently moved to Kristiansand. When I was 19 years old, a good friend lent me a reflex film camera and showed me how to use it, how to develop black and white negatives, and how to make prints from them in my bathroom. I spent entire nights there, listening to music, telling my little brother the door would stay locked and he would have to pee somewhere else, and enjoying the flow of my work, the smell of the chemicals, and the cavern-like atmosphere of the darkroom in which time was suspended. Then another friend got himself a new model and gave me his old Minolta X700 some two years later. I have used it ever since, and this is how it all started.

From February 2015 through May 2016, I was living temporarily in Berkeley, California. Some of my photos of the Bay Area can be found on this blog

I think that Instagram sucks but could not decide myself yet to close my account for good.  

The Natya Dance Company. Berlin is featured in the gallery Bharatanatyam

In case Martin Scorsese’s lawyers want to sue me, I’d like to clarify that he never directed the movie I attribute to him in the gallery Freeze-frame, nor does such a movie exist. All other images in this gallery are also unrelated to any of the works of the directors mentioned and the production companies named.

If you want to buy prints, have me take your photo, organize a solo exhibition, publish a photo book of my work, or otherwise make me famous (and rich), please do not hesitate to contact me.

All images on this website ©2014-2021 Christoph Kalter. All rights reserved.