The Artist

I’m Malte, a photographer based in Canberra, Australia. I photograph cities — street, documentary and architecture — drawn to the geometry, light and shadow that structure a scene as much as any subject within it. Some images hold a direct, confrontational moment; others resolve into near-abstraction, where form and structure take over from narrative.

My pictures are found, not staged. Most come from patience, persistence and a fair amount of luck. The reflections and double exposures in my work happen in the camera, not in the computer; afterwards, I largely limit myself to tonal work, cropping and the occasional removal of a distraction.

I learnt photography in a high-school darkroom in West Berlin, where for the first time I controlled every step from exposure to final print. That still matters to me: every print is made from a colour-calibrated file by a fine-art printer I trust, on archival paper.

After a long pause to raise a family and build a business, I came back to photography in 2025 — and haven’t stopped since.

I hope you enjoy my work — please get in touch if something speaks to you.

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The Long Version

My First Cameras

I have no formal education in photography — I simply started taking photos when someone first handed me a camera. I was about six or seven, and it was a pass-down from my grandfather: an Agfa Iso-Rapid C with two settings, sunny and cloudy, and disposable flash cubes on top — four bulbs, rotated one per shot, then thrown out.

A “pocket” camera followed, and at around 14 I bought my first SLR: a Praktica Super TL1000. It was East German, and it showed — built like a tank, with a distinct lack of refinement, a body that shook whenever you released the shutter, and fully manual exposure and focus.

Discovering the Darkroom

It had everything I needed to go around my hometown of West Berlin and take photos. Colour turned out to be frustrating: in the 80s you dropped your film at the local chemist, and the prints came back a week later “auto-corrected” — whatever I had tried with exposure, the lab undid it.

But at high school I had access to a darkroom. So I shot a lot of black & white (mainly ILFORD FP4 and HP5, and the occasional Kodak Tmax) and developed and printed it myself. Finally, I was in control of the entire process — from taking the photograph, to developing the film, all the way to the final print. I loved it, and it was then that I learnt the most about photography.

Losing the Darkroom

That control didn’t last. When I finished high school I lost access to the darkroom and was back to chemist prints. University started, and other things became more important for about the next ten years.

The Digital Era

My first digital camera, a point-and-shoot in 2000, was a serious step back; anything that mattered I still shot on film. In the early 2000s I moved from Berlin to Australia, and in 2003 Canon released the EOS 10D, its digital SLR for the serious enthusiast. I scraped together all the money I had and bought one, plus a Canon 24–70mm L-series lens — still my go-to street zoom today.

To be in control of the whole process again, I built a fully colour-calibrated workflow, which lets me make accurate prints with the few printmakers I trust. Much like the darkroom, the tight feedback loop taught me more in those first few months of shooting digital than I had learnt in years before.

A Long Pause — and a Complete Restart

After about a decade I had to set photography aside to give my full attention to my young family and my equally young business — a software company in the health space. What followed was more than ten demanding years, with no time left for creativity outside of work; for years my phone was the only camera I used.

In 2025 I was able to leave that business behind, and the visual creativity returned almost immediately. I now shoot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, bought just as Canon was retiring it. I’ve resisted the move to mirrorless so far, and I don’t feel I’m missing out.

Where I Am Now

It’s been genuinely good fun — a creative outlet and a source of energy rather than a drain on it. What I set out to shoot was street, but along the way I’ve found an eye for architecture: urban structures often frame my street subjects, and street elements just as often end up supporting my architecture images.