David Schermann isn’t a professional photographer (yet!), however his photos reflect a disarming beauty. Young artist based in Vienna, his storytelling is performed through chromatic saturations and a peremptory feeling of timelessness.

 

Solitude, alienation, passion and love intertwine in Bigger than Us

 

His stylistic research portrays landscapes but also everyday moments permeated by a warm dreamlike  mood.

 

 

 

Hyacinthus, inspired to Greek legend of Apollo

 

 

At times the sense of melancholy and alienation intertwined to love and passion prevails. Sometimes it’s a deafening silence. Other times it’s the connection to mother earth, by simply observing the beauty of its existing. Nature in my Blood, Bigger Than Us, Escaping, No Place Like Home and If you fall, I fall harder are just a few examples.

 

Flauernaut: If you fall hard, I fall harder

 

Vapeonaut: Escaping

 

David loves to crystallize fragments of real life also through travel photography. He shoots photos of the countries he travels across, but also of those areas living political and social instability. In fact it’s in some of these series that he actuates his experimentation of stylistic approaches. In Openland: Kyrgyzstan – one of the ten poorest countries in the world – a vintage effect predominates, whereas in the case of Vietnamese Dreamsapes, infrared techniques are used.

 

Travelling throughout Kyrgyzstan

 

Within his creative flow, David also deals with projects strongly tied to social issues. With Nachtklänge – night sounds, he interviews several homeless people throughout Austria on their musical opinions, concluding that music bonds all social classes together.

In the project Insomia, dedicated to the city of Hong Kong, through images David documents just how much its inhabitants are constantly over exposed to light. Amongst international cities, Hong Kong’s urban sky is one of the brightest during night hours – literally from 100 to 1000 times more than others – worldwide. This causes effects on the residents’ health and sleep quality patterns, but also in terms of pollution of flora and fauna and their organic processes.

 

Insomnia

. . .

WHY
why and how did you end up in your career path?
First of all, it’s not my profession (yet hopefully!). I’m still studying at University, but I love photography. My father is a journalist and that’s why I was always around cameras and developed an interest in documenting life around me.

WHO
how would you describe yourself in a few words?
I don’t know, I’m more the quiet type I guess. I love Sci-Fi movies and playing videogames.

WHAT
what is your source of inspiration?
My main source of inspiration is music. Listening to music plants new ideas and visions in my head that I want to realize in photos later. Also of course movies like Blade Runner (1 & 2), Sunshine, Drive, 5th Element and so on!

WHERE
where do you go to when you need a break?
I live in Vienna, but was born in a small village with about 500 inhabitants. If I need a break, I go home to my hometown, which is surrounded by woods and small hills. Life is so much slower there and I love it.

WHEN
when and what will your next steps be?
I’m currently planning a project in which I don’t shoot photos myself. Never did that before, so lets see how it goes.

**WILDCARD
when I look at your photographs I perceive an allure of quiet solitude. Is this an emotion you intentionally convey, or is it the observer’s subconscious manifestation?
Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes not. I think it’s just the way I photograph and how I stage the photo. I love to give the observer the freedom to interpret his/her own feelings in regards to the photo and I’m always curious to listen to what they feel or think it’s about. I don’t have a strict definition about the topic of a photo. I do have a specific emotion while capturing or editing a photo, but that’s just my personal emotion. Another person could feel a completely different one by looking at it and I don’t want to affect that by telling them about my own true intention.