Welcome to our debut issue of Showcase Dusseldorf, brought to you by Production Paradise, featuring some of the leading photographers, photo agents, stylists, photo production and post production companies, rental studios, and equipment rental companies currently working out of Dusseldorf.

You can find more creative professionals and facilities for photographic and film production in our Dusseldorf Photo and Film directories. 

Companies such as Vogue, Philips, Henkel, Porsche, L'Oréal Paris, Heineken, Dr. Oetker, Volvo, Adidas, BMW, and Discovery Magazine, among others, have trusted these professionals with their latest advertising campaigns and editorial shoots.

Be sure not to miss our recommended events:

• The Red Couch Worldwide - photography exhibition by Horst Wackerbarth, featuring the quarter of a century lasting project. 800 people from 52 countries have been photographed on the travelling red couch. Until 30th October at NRW Forum, Dusseldorf. 
• not abstract - photography exhibition by Andreas Gursky, featuring selected early works and new project, exploring the abstract potential of the photographic medium. Until 6th November at Kunstsammlung, Dusseldorf.

Our cover image was shot by Astrid Möller. 

Founded in Dusseldorf in 1985, Elegant Elephant Studios is one of the biggest photo studios in Germany, located on the premises of a former steel works.

The 2,800 m² space can accomodate film and photo productions for every type of client. From automobile to food, fashion and people photography, spaces range from smaller studios measuring 40 m² or large work spaces measuring more than 500 m².

Elegant Elephant also features professional mask rooms, hair washing sinks and showers, production offices, a workshop for set builders and a large coffee bar. For creative breaks and meetings, the studios have comfortable lounge areas seperate from the set.

Elegant Elephant also provides the appropriate rooms and, if needed, the necessary equipment for shoots as well as corresponding services to support a production with experienced photo assistants.

Burkhard Henrichs is a long established fashion and advertising photographer, based in Dusseldorf, with an additional production outpost based in Cape Town.

Having worked for an impressive line up of fashion clients over the last two decades worlwide like Falke, Burlington, Esprit, Schiesser, Barbara Schwarzer, Odlo, Alberto Via Appia, Karstadt, Kaufhof and many more, Burkhard has kept the eye and the feel for the zeitgeist and impressive new visual looks, from edgy editorials like the latest Spectr. issue to commercial studio work.

Aside from his much loved travel production expertise (USA, Europe, Central America and South Africa), he is also known for his attractive studio work, bringing in his analogue experience, creating the perfect light in today's digital world.

Creativity, reliability, friendly service  and the will "to go the extra mile" are some of the striking features that characterise him and his work.

Working from his bright and spacious downtown, backyard studio in the centre of Dusseldorf, Domenik Broich is driven by a passion for their work creating images across still life, fashion, food, kids and advertising.

His professional vocation, precise work and excellent lighting abilities provides consistent success and has earned him the trust of many long-term clients including Kettler, Strellson, Step Magazine, G-LAB, Fashion ID, Michael Meyer, GDS Messe Düsseldorf, KunstundKollegen, Echopark/KIK and more.

Domenik is known for his reliability and strong problem solving abilities. The studio is always trying to push boundaries, keeping clients' needs, deadlines and budgets firmly in mind.

Domenik's professional work-flow and constant attention to quality make him the perfect partner for any project.

Stefan Kapfer is a fashion photographer specialised in beauty editorials and campaigns. His success in beauty and fashion photography is rooted in his background. Having started as an independent makeup artist in New York, Stefan developed a great eye for detail. His professional career as a photographer has begun in 1998 with the Cavita (Escada Group) campaign featuring Kelly Fischer. Since then his lense captured many more celebrities such as R. Hunold, Nick Heidfeld and David Bowie.

Stefan is now based in Germany with his second base in Cape Town. He has worked all over the world shooting catalogues for clients like Tchibo, C&A, Ernstings Family and editorials for magazines like Eyewear Magazine, ELLE and Style. His clients love him for his problem-solving ability and unique and elegant style.

Iver Hansen is a Dusseldorf-based car photographer with many years of experience. In 1984, Iver designed and built his own studio, specialized in car photography.

In 1996 he included professional post production in his workflow and a few years later he started using CGI in-house. In 2002, Iver produced his first full-CGI campain for Audi.

Iver is still on the road doing fine images.

Felix Gemein is a Dusseldorf-based photographer specialised in people, documentary and aerial photography. His list of clients include brands like Huawei, Red Bull, Pacific Airlines, NRW bank, Sony Playstation, Claas, Veolia and many more.

Felix's photoraphy tries to capture the true character of his subjects. This, combined with the clean geometry of his works, creates a unique and expressive style.

In 2012 Felix discovered his passion for aerial photography and now keeps working in this area as a skilled drone pilot for video and photo production.

Currently Felix and his team are working on a big documentary about RC-Sports, the world full of fascination for engineering, technology and competitions.

To know more about the recent projects and to see more work, visit his website.

Harry Vorsteher is an award-winning fashion, beauty and kids photographer based in Dusseldorf and working for clients worldwide. His portfolio boasts works done for the biggest advertising agencies such as McCann Erickson Hamburg, BBDO, Ogilvy, renowned brands like Nissan, Bosch, Audi, MEXX, Sony and editorials like Elle Germany, In Fashion and Men Style, among others.

His creativity is focused on achieving essential results and outstanding outcomes for his clients.

Taking natural and individual images is Harry's main motivation. His results are characterised by a unique sensitivity and creativity in which he strives for the perfect moment, captured in that one picture.

To see more works of Harry Vorsteher and get more information about recent projects visit his website.

If you’re looking for compact and serious fashion productions, organised, produced and post-produced in North Germany, Peter Wattendorff and his five-headed team will surprise you with extraordinary high class contemporary photography, as well as specific image processing.

Regularly shooting for well known German clients and agencies, they shoot in the studio and out on location. Fotografie Wattendorff GmbH has only state of the art equipment on hand as well as HMI for parallel video productions.
 
Clients include: Sieger Fashion, Cavallo, Spiegelburg, Ernstings Family, Apetito, BASF, Eon, Sparda Bank and LVM.
 
Visit their website or contact the Wattendorf team directly for more information.

Thorsten Schmidtkord is specialised on corporate communications, shooting industrial processes, employees in their work environment and capital goods, among other things. He shoots it in an unique way for each company. 

Thorsten’s clients book him to do photo shoots for their annual reports, company brochures, websites and customer magazines. To name just a few examples, Thorsten portrayed the staff of MLP, created the expressive image motifs for BMD and did the fascinating airshots for the CLAAS tractor campaign. Each company is unique and each company’s visual materials should be unique too. This is the task of Thorsten Schmidtkord.

Clients include ABUS, CLAAS, Wirtgen, Gelsenwasser, Siempelkamp, Klöckner, and Haniel, among others.  

Thorsten Schmidtkord is represented by EXPOSE Photographers.