MAX RAULFF
PHOTOGRAPHY

About me

My name is Max J. Raulff, and I am a photographer and videographer.

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I was born in Berlin, with my father being a journalist and a passionate amateur photographer. I first began playing with my dad's Nikon around five, six years. My childhood, marked by frequent moves across Germany and to the United States and back, offered me early opportunities to discover and document new places and the world around me. You could also say, it forced me to become curious. 

Other than that, my parents extensive art library and their habit of dragging me through museums became a source of inspiration for me. Early visual memories include Robert Frank's seminal book "The Americans" as well as Walker Evans pictures. German street and documentary photographer Barbara Klemm was a frequent guest in our house and a friend of the family and would also have a lasting influence on me. 

I picked up my first digital camera during my final years of High School and began doing the usual crappy photo jobs - "hey man can you photograph my punk rock band next friday?" - you know what I am talking about. My first jobs were more often than not paid in free entry and warm canned beer. 

After I graduated from High School, I took off on my own travels. Like many of my friends I backpacked across all of Europe. I did not have any fixed plans, but I had a bunch of cameras with me and quickly reconnected to my love for street and documentary photography. It was probably during these wild, experimental years that I found my own artistic approach. 

Videography came later, and my first real projects only began in the last years. I guess I always had a lot, and most probably too much respect for the moving image. 

When photographing people I always follow the credo "Inside, looking out" - a philosophy of becoming immersed in my subjects' lives and environments, to document them from an intimate, inside perspective rather than as an outside observer. 

My "formal education", to call it that way, took a different path. I never saw a photography school from inside. Instead, I studied art history, focussing on Italian and Spanish Old Master painters, as well as - you might have guessed it - 20th century photography, and a good bit of visual storytelling in French and American Film Noir. I do believe that all of this left a mark on my photographic style. At least this is what I keep telling myself.

A friend of mine once told me that I photograph just like the way Caravaggio painted. Until this day this is the best compliment I have ever received. Thank you, Antovani. 

Today, I still work both with analog as well as with digital cameras, using a different array of cameras spanning multiple areas. Saying I had no favourites would be a lie. My digital cameras are all Fujifilms - but generally speaking I will shoot with everything I can get my hands on. 

I was lucky enough to have some of my photos internationally published and awarded, including recognition from the MONO awards and the Black & White Photo Awards as well as Exhibitions in Italy, Germany and the United States.