Heinz-Peter Bader

I typically photograph politics, sports, arts and culture.

I learnt photography as a child, taught by my father. My earliest memory of photography was helping him to develop black-and-white prints in the darkroom and almost falling asleep.

My first assignment was when I was still at school, documenting an exhibition of various student newspapers for our own school paper. One of Austria’s dailies asked for a photograph and printed it. Much to my surprise, when I came back home from school a couple of days later, my mother told me the newspaper had called to ask where they should transfer the publishing fee.

The assignment that impacted me the most was a funeral. Funerals are horrible to cover as you see the most private and intimate moments in life.

I don’t tend to have an audience in mind when I take pictures. I try to take the best photograph possible and what excites me the most is trying to get good pictures out of assignments others would call dull.

My biggest lesson has been not to mix my job and my private life. You are either on assignment or not. You can’t do both at the same time.

The people I respect the most are my parents for having raised me, my children for being raised by me and my wife for putting up with me.