Johannes Leistner

On the 7th of November the NCL foundation held their 6th charity dinner “Cooking For Kids” in the extraordinary venue “REE Location im Heizwerk”, in Hamburg.

The concept of this happening really is unique: for every dinner, NCL invites a well know star chef (in this case Steffen Henssler) who sets up a cooking contest with guest. Two groups of three guests each have to prepare a three course dinner (one portion) within 20 minutes. To watch them perform under the time pressure and the funny comments of the star chef is great fun for all guests.
Besides this there are other highlights such as speeches or a magician act and of course a delicious three course dinner (cooked by a real chef).

NCL is the abbreviation of “Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis”, a metabolic disorder that causes an increasing decease of nerve cells. Besides many other objectives, the NCL foundation’s aim is to increase the public awareness of NCL in order to promote the early diagnosis of the disease.
My contribution to this charity event was taking the photos which will be used for the foundation’s press work and can be also purchased by the guests. The amount of the sales will be donated as well.

I was happy to help and also happy to receive a nice feedback for my work:

Moin Herr Leistner,

vielen Dank für Ihren unermüdlichen Einsatz. Die Fotos sind wirklich super geworden. Ich bin gespannt, wieviele Gäste sich welche runterladen werden bzw. bestellen werden.

Schönen Gruß
Dr. Frank Stehr
NCL Research

Lieber Johannes,

vielen Dank für die tollen Bilder, die Du auf unserer Hochzeit gemacht hast! Die Wahl der Location und die Art, wie Du uns bei den Hochzeitsfotos in Szene gesetzt hast waren super und die Bilder sind einfach traumhaft geworden. Es hat richtig Spaß gemacht die „offiziellen“ Brautpaarfotos mit Dir zu machen und wir sind begeistert von Deinem Gespür für die richtigen Blickwinkel, Posen und Bildhintergründe. Du hast unsere Erwartungen tatsächlich bei Weitem übertroffen!

Auch die Bilder in der Kirche und bei der anschließenden Feier spiegeln wunderbar die Stimmung des Tages wieder. Deine Anwesenheit bei der Feier war äußerst angenehm und man hat gar nicht gemerkt fotografiert zu werden – was die Fotos umso schöner und natürlicher macht. Wir gucken uns die Fotos gerne immer wieder an und erinnern uns an diesen für uns einmaligen Tag zurück.

Ganz liebe Grüße,
Katrin & Dirk

this is my first attempt with such kind of shots (long "bridal veil"). In the beginning it has not been easy to convince the bridal couple to do a "fancy photo". they were the kind of people who wanted no unusual photos, in terms of no jumping, running, tossing and not even kissing (just joking) - they only wanted a few classical settings. what ever a couple likes is perfectly fine with me, though it surprised me a bit as you don’t hear this very often.

so they were not really in a "play-mood" and I had to “teach” them exactly what to do. once again I found out how difficult it is do direct people with "spoken instructions" - as I was standing on a balcony to photograph from above. additionally to that, they were distracted by their guests and friends.

After all the result is not too bad, but I definitely have to work on this idea much more to develop it further (i.e. I dislike that you don’t see much of her hands). A general problem with this kind of shots also is, that there aren’t many locations with a balcony I could use…

Last Saturday I had an assignment to do a documentary about the annual BabyWelt fair in Hamburg, organized by the publishing house Gruner+Jahr. The exhibition is all about children and their needs - of course it is also been thought of parents’ interests.

For me it has been a good change in the recently started wedding photography season. In contrary to a wedding documentary I not only photographed what happened there,

but also had to execute a whole list of moods and settings the client wanted to have. A good challenge which kept me busy for almost eight hours. After all, the client was very happy and satisfied with the outcome!