MICHAEL ZEYDA

I'm a photographer and designer. I was born and raised in Germany and moved to the US about 20 years ago.

I got my first camera at the age of 16. A cheap East German brand was the only thing I could afford. In the early days I mainly photographed landscape and nature, set up a black and white darkroom in my parents' guest bathroom which they didn't appreciate and eventually I had to move it to into a corner of the basement laundry room.

Before starting design school in Germany, I was able to join a photo studio as an assistant and was fortunate enough to get my hands on every format from 35mm, to medium and large format cameras.

Later, during my professional career part of my role as an interactive designer was art directing product photography for Dell Computers here in Austin.

For the past few years, I've been building a body of work exploring contemporary authentic portraiture. I enjoy working with people in order to create something that has soul and feeling and an expression that makes you look and keep looking.