Welcome to my website, my name is Tobias Richter and I have been devoting myself to nature photography full-time for just over 15 years. I come from Saxony in Germany, where I still live today.
With my work I try to convey to the viewer my feeling of the essence and beauty of an area, to arouse an interest in wild nature and perhaps make a contribution to its preservation.
I concentrate my work on European mountain worlds in the fascinating interplay of light and weather. Despite the use of modern, digital recording technology, it is important to me to create a natural image of the landscapes and to limit myself when editing the images. This means that I have to visit photo motifs as often as necessary until the conditions on site correspond to my image ideas. I spend many nights in the mountains or start my tours long before daybreak. In addition to the artistic aspect, I therefore also see photography as a documentary aspect.
Since I began my photographic work, I have been visiting the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, a fascinating rocky landscape in the east of Germany and the north of the Czech Republic. Today, this area, with its spectacular views, mighty rock towers, delicate rock needles, the deeply cut Elbe valley and the structurally rich sandstone, takes up the majority of my photographic work. Although I restrict myself much more spatially than before, I do not see this as a limitation or even too monotonous. In addition to classic landscape photography, my focus today is also on things that are less obvious at first glance, such as ferns and mosses in the rock faces, weathering structures in the sandstone and the animals in their habitat. On almost every one of my numerous visits, I discover new things that fascinate me and occasionally provide the impetus for new projects or inspire me to work on them more intensively. My short journey and the long engagement with the area allow me to immerse myself more deeply. Through the experience I have gained, I have developed a feeling for the weather and the local microclimate and can therefore make better use of moods, light and fog than I would be able to when traveling to more distant areas.
Every year I show my most beautiful pictures of the region in a large-format wall calendar!
My work shows a clear change in the landscape over the last decade, which is much more significant than I previously expected. Climatic changes have become visible much faster than I could have imagined. The bark beetle and the great forest fire in 2022 have completely changed Bohemian Switzerland in particular. I will continue to follow this process intensively in the coming years and try to record it.
Tobias Richter
December 2024
Competions
With my work I have won several nationally and internationally renowned prizes and placements, which I am very pleased about. Among others:
GDT European Nature Photographer of the Year – GDT Nature Photographer of the Year – Gregor Calendar Award – MML Memorial Maria Luisa – NLPA Natural Landscape Photographer of the Year – Rewilding Europe
Hoarfrost
Winner GDT European Nature Photographer of the Year 2021 – Plants Category
Southerly winds that often prevail in late autumn drive the low clouds over the Bohemian Basin against the natural barrier of the low mountain ranges in the German-Czech border region. While the highest peaks of the Ore Mountains are usually above the resulting inversion weather situation, the lower Bohemian Switzerland remains in the clouds. When the temperature then drops far enough, thick hoarfrost covers the exposed areas in particular, such as this birch tree in the Tisa walls.
Inferno
Runner Up Overall Portfolio Natural Landscape Photographer of the Year 2024Third Place GDT Nature Photographer of the Year 2024 Category Plants
In July 2022, the largest forest fire ever documented in this area occurred in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. It was only after 26 days and thanks to the efforts of hundreds of firefighters that the fire was completely extinguished. A natural disaster of this magnitude in the core area of my daily photographic work was difficult to imagine, despite the circumstances that existed and were known to me. The dry, hot summers of recent years had enabled the bark beetle to appear on a large scale and a large part of the spruce stands had fallen victim to it. High visitor pressure in the national park and the associated risk of fires is unfortunately present in many places. The area that was so familiar to me would change to an extent that I could not yet comprehend at the time. I wanted to continuously document this change in nature and, in addition to the fire, to record its recovery over the next few years.
First Light
Runner Up Overall Portfolio Natural Landscape Photographer of the Year 2024
The morning sun on this winter morning reaches one of the striking so-called “Riffkiefern”, characteristic pines on the rocks of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. These pines, which often grow in exposed areas, only take root in nutrient-poor, dry sandy soil and are exposed to high levels of sunlight and storms without protection. As a result, their growth is significantly slower here and their growth forms contribute a lot to the character of the landscape. The sunlit frost on the tree creates an extreme contrast to the dark rock walls in the background and emphasizes its silhouette even more.
Spring in the Rocks
Runner Up Overall Portfolio Natural Landscape Photographer of the Year 2024
In addition to the spectacular table mountains, the Elbe Sandstone Mountains are characterized by deeply cut gorges, which, with their cool, damp cellar climate, offer ideal conditions for a variety of mosses, lichens and ferns. At the beginning of April, the first fresh green appears on the rock walls of these gorges. The buckler ferns unfurl their first fern fronds, while the liverworts form their almost white setae and spore capsules, which stand out clearly against the dark sandstone rocks.
Top of Europe
Honorable Mention Natural Landscape Photographer Award 2021Honorable Mention 32th María Luisa Memoria 2021
In mid September I planned to capture the Mont Blanc mountain range in early autumn conditions. During my trip a foretaste of winter swept across the French Alps and I had to stay down at a campsite in the Chamonix valley for several days. With the clear up weather forecast in mind I planned the hiking tour to the area around Lake Blanc to capture the sunrise. I started the tour in thick fog and the light of my headlight deep in the night. After half an hour hiking the winding narrow path was full of Ibex which left the higher regions to avoid the snow and chose the path as a rest for the night. I didn’t want to disturb their sleep or get in trouble with them, so I decided to take a really steep “short cut”. It took me quite a while to find a possible way through these rocks and bush jungle. After I made it back on the trail, I really had to hurry but after passing the upper edge of the fog orientation was much easier and the clear sky looked really promising. I reached my destination on time and was rewarded with a magnificent sunrise above the freshly snow-covered peaks and the foggy valley.
References
My pictures have already been published in a large number of large wall calendars of all major German calendar publishers as well as in numerous magazines or books. Selected clients and examples below.
Calendar
Ackermann – Alpha Edition – Dumont – Edition-Panorama – GEO – Harenberg – Heye – Korsch – Kunth – Palazzi – Stürtz – teNeues. In addition to the single image use in the publisher calendars, there are several author calendars and my “Saxon Switzerland and Bohemian Switzerland” calendar which I publish annually.
Editorial
Focus – GEO Saison – National Geographic Deutschland – Lonely Planet – Süddeutsche Zeitung – Kunth – Bruckmann – Dumont – Randomhouse – Digital Camera World – Bauer Media Group – Freytag & Berndt – National Geographic Viajes – National Geographic Traveler Russland – ADAC – Natur und Heilen – Reader’s Digest – Runner’s World – Schweizer Illustrierte – SRF – Sheyinluyou
Advertising
Lupine Lighting Systems – Ford – ÖBB – Walter Medien – Polarmond – Tourism Saxon Switzerland
COOPERATIONS
IMAGES LICENCE
Commission
All of my images can be purchased for commercial RM usage. If you would like to use one of my pictures for your work, message me or get the picture material directly from one of my image agencies. In addition to the photographs published on this website, I still have a large number of stock images in my growing archive. Of course I also can produce your individual images.