711rent is Europe's leading photo and film equipment rental house with branches in Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona and Mallorca. The company carries well-maintained gear from all major brands, including Profoto, Broncolor, Briese, Arri, Kino Flo, Dedolight, Hasselblad, Phase One, Canon, Nikon, Apple, Mole Richardson, The Light and more.

Equipment can be delivered to any location with its 24/7, full pick-up and drop-off service, offering "ready to fly" packed equipment, as well as rental vehicles with qualified man on van and all production accessories needed for an outdoor shooting (easy-up tents, chairs, tables as well as heaters or power generators...).

Visit the team in its Paris rental office located in the 10th arrondissement close to Canal St Martin and Square Republic to check out the latest additions to its equipment stock containing:  

• HMI Hi-speed Ballast for 1,2kW/2,5kW/4kW Arri and Briese HMI lighting system.
• The new Briese H5.3 Tungsten System, the Phase One 3 Series (350/380/3 100) with XF Bodies.
• The Dedolight D4 Bicolor LED and our new inhouse developed Ring flash compatible with the Profoto OCF B2 Batteryflashsystem.

"Visit our open house event at 711rent Barcelona and 711rent Mallorca. We invite you to find out more about the range of our products and services, get to know our staff and visit our locations in Barcelona and Mallorca.

We're looking forward to showing you the latest in Briese, Profoto, Broncolor, Arri, Phase One, Canon and Nikon equipment, and talk to you about your needs.

All this in a relaxed atmosphere with drinks and fingerfood. You will also be able to meet members of the international staff to get more info on the 711rent network with its seven locations across Europe.

• 711rent Barcelona: Carrer Ciutat de Granada 45,
  08005 Barcelona - Tuesday 26th April from 14h onwards.
• 711rent Mallorca: Carrer de s'Escola Graduada 41,
  07350 Binissalem - Thursday 28th April starting at 14h.

Please get back to us in a short email to tell us where and with how many people you're planing to visit us."

Welcome to our debut issue of Showcase Cologne, brought to you by Production Paradise, featuring some of the leading photographers currently working out of the city including Bernd Vogel, Boris Bertram, Bruno Alexander, Christoph Papsch, Frank Rossbach, Hochkeppler & Schmitt, Jo Fober, Jo Kirchher, Manuel Mittelpunkt, Manuel Thomé, Michael Haas, Mike Christian, Peter Lindemann, Rainer Holz, RAW / Ralph Wentz, Thorsten Kern, Tomas Rodriguez and Tomy Badurina; photo and film production company NATURAL BORN EXPLORERS; post-production company Vision Unltd. Creative Worx - VUCX; directors a>>headscreen Philip Schnurr and Marc Daum; photographers' agency Tobias Bosch Fotomanagement; casting agency EVERYDAY PEOPLE; rental studios cologne-loft.com and Studio Dernbach; and online platform medienjobs.center. 

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

Companies such as Nike, Chanel, ESCADA, Procter & Gamble, Max Factor, Audi, Corbis, Toyota, Charly, TM - frontRow, Qvest and Triple Alpha Avion Services, among others, have trusted these professionals with their latest advertising campaigns and editorial shoots.

Be sure not to miss our recommended events:

• 26. Cologne Conference -Internationales Film- und Fernsehfestival Köln - Submissions are open from 1st April, with the event taking place form 7th to 14th October.
• Photoszene Festival 2016 - Photography exhibitions, film screenings, portfolio reviews and more, from 19th August to 25th September. 

Our cover image was shot by Michael Cuno. 

Photo designer Michael Haas is based in the south of Cologne and has more than 20 years of experience in production and photography. Besides architecture photography, Michael is specialised in still life, fashion and industry stills.

His studio offers versatile applications from stills up to furniture set-ups. His style demonstrates creativity with great attention to detail, and over the years his enthusiasm and energy has been frequently appreciated by long-term clients including Aldi-Süd, Bayer, Lanxess, Swarovski and Deutsche Post.

Michael works for local, regional and international clients, from small companies up to global players. As a passionate photographer, however, he still loves his frequent personal artistic projects.

The studio provides stills facilitation and offers full service production capabilities, from preparations and organisation of a production all the way to the final steps of in-house post-production. Michael organises and manages photo shoots for ad campaigns, catalogues and Web, working in the studio or out on location according to clients' specific needs and requirements.

Tomy Badurina is a Cologne-based advertising photographer. The images in this Showcase illustrate his focus on corporate, portrait and advertising photography.

For over a decade the centre of his work has been Cologne. Clients can find him either on location or in the studio. Tomy loves to interact with people and get involved with them and bring out the best in order to capture the perfect moment.

He works with agencies and direct clients, including ADAC, AVG Köln, KölnTourismus GmbH and Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg.

Tomy is currently looking for representation.

Visit his website for more information.

Conveniently located between Cologne and Frankfurt, Studio Dernbach offers unique and unrivalled features to ensure substantial savings in time and costs for photo and video productions.

The studio provides state-of-the-art facilities to ensure efficient and professional proceedings, catering forthe  most challenging expectations, with light channels surrounding the production area, a floor embedded rotation and lifting platform, inter-changeable colour backgrounds, and a multitude of additional extras.

Certified for top-secret productions, Studio Dernbach offers the ideal solution for the automotive sector but is equally ideal for other industrial and sophisticated product areas, even including music videos.

For bookings throughout 2016, Studio Dernbach offers a 10% discount on its studio rental rates. For further details visit the Studio Dernbach homepage or call direct.

Vision Unltd. Creative Worx - VUCX - is a full service agency headquartered in Cologne, with satellites in Belgrade and New York City. Since its foundation in 1993, VUCX has designed interactive experiences in the advertising and branding fields, B2B and B2C, seamlessly connecting the analogue and digital worlds. The VUCX team comprises over 20 employees from seven countries worldwide, and has more than 50 international clients.

VUCX is an innovation-driven hybrid, bringing strategy - Vision Unltd. - and creative design execution - Creative Worx - together in one company. The agency centres on design, interactive media, rich media content, game production, as well as branding and online marketing.

Media convergence and interdisciplinary thinking are important aspects of the corporate culture in which teamwork and creativity are essential to its work. VUCX technology specialists bring state-of-the-art knowledge to each project. With this set-up, VUCX is facing the future, able to respond to the demands of constantly changing international and local markets.

Boris Bertram was born in Essen in 1971 and now lives in Cologne with his wife and son. Thanks to his father's profession of developing and building professional lighting systems for photo studios, his love for photography developed very early in life.

In the 90s, Boris specialised in one of Germany's leading photo studios, learning everything from perfect lighting to handling large format cameras. He has since worked for several studios and began his freelance career in 2008.

Boris now specialises in people, portait and industry photography on location,  in the studio, and worldwide. For his clients in the industrial sector he has also realised several very complex, month-long time-lapse videos.

Boris has worked for numerous agencies including Castenow, Grey, Butter, Gramm and Echtzeit for clients including Vallourec, SMS Group, FMT Gruppe, DEKRA, WILO, Sidestep, Deloitte and more.

Philip Schnurr's love of image-making was established at an early age thanks to his father, a passionate Super8 film-maker. The rattle of the camera and crackle of the projector fascinated him to the point that the camera has now become his third eye.

Philip began doing visuals and video installations in clubs and underground discos where he made his first contact with people from the event and agency business.

Philip went on to do visuals for brands including Sony Ericsson, Averna, Carlsberg and Barcadi. In 2005, after completing his studies in film-making, he founded a>>headscreen for visual concepts. He has since worked for national and international brands and agenies such as TIGI, Alcina, Hochtief, Diesel and Lufthansa.

An individual style coupled with his empathy and heightened feeling for the zeitgeist has distinguished Philip's work. His passion for fashion, beauty and sport commercials can be seen in his two lastest works for M2Beauté and Sonja Blade.

Philip Schnurr ist represented by Andrea Heberger Creative Pool & Coordination.

Manuel Mittelpunkt was born in 1987 in Moers, Germany, and is now based in Cologne. He is mainly focused on still life, liquid, and cosmetics photography.

In 2010, Manuel started his own career as a freelance photographer. He has since completed a number of commissioned shoots by well-known clients, magazines and agencies.

Clients include Adidas, Montblanc, Schwarzkopf, Swarovski, Fila, Boxfresh, Karstadt and Deichmann as well as agencies Jung von Matt, Grey, Scholz & Friends and Bel Epok. Manuel has also worked for GQ, Lufthansa Exclusive, Page, QVEST, Sneakers and Eyewear Magazine.

Manuel is represented in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by PAM-Mirjam Böhm.