“I don’t think you ever ‘make it’ as a photographer. It’s a constant learning process,” says Daniel Herrmann-Zoll. Growing up in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney, rock climbing and hiking, Herrmann-Zoll’s early ambitions were to become an adventure sports/outdoor photographer.
“I wanted to capture the enjoyment I got out of that lifestyle to inspire others to get out more often,” Herrmann-Zoll says. However, he went on to study at RMIT and, after three years there, his aspirations changed.
Herrmann-Zoll discovered a new direction during the course of his studies. “It opened up a whole new world for me to explore,” he says. “My teachers at RMIT set me on a new path and gave me the building blocks of the discipline of still life,” he says. “I went from spending my weekends outside to spending days on end in small dark rooms building small sets and playing with different lighting techniques.”
After completing his studies, Herrmann-Zoll bought a one-way ticket to Hamburg, Germany and worked in Europe for a year. On his return to Melbourne, he met the crew at Hell Studios where he is now based. Shooting advertising work for three years, Herrmann-Zoll describes his work as clean and graphic. “I try to produce strong imagery that creates a connection between the consumer and the product,” he says.
Herrmann-Zoll believes it’s important to keep learning and developing. “The [photography] industry is such a rapidly evolving beast. It seems that every month there are amazing new technological and software breakthroughs,” he says. “I just want to always be pushing my limits and trying out new ways of doing things, and improving on the way I do them.”
