Photos by Eberhard Grossgasteiger
It’s not every day that a contributor reaches 1 billion views. If we’re totally honest, it wasn’t a milestone we ever even fathomed when Unsplash first started. But here we are! And not one but 25 contributors have shattered our expectations in a massive way.
In the first part of our “Behind 1 Billion” mini series, we spoke to contributor Eberhard Grossgasteiger. He’s recently reached 2 billion views (!), so we caught up with himabout how it feels to have reached this mind-blowing milestone, and looked back at his journey on Unsplash.
Photos by Eberhard Grossgasteiger
Tell us a little about why and how you started submitting to Unsplash?
It’s a strange story in a way. I took extensive analogue photographs about 30 years ago for a stretch. I had taught myself everything auto-didactically and was truly obsessed with photography. Then I had a professional change and I found no more time to occupy myself with photography as I imagined it. I stopped abruptly, in fact, but still I bought an expensive LEICA compact camera for fast and good photos, just in case. The cam rested untouched in our salon for more than 20 years, until October 2016, when I read an announcement in the newspaper that someone was looking for my old LEICA compact camera in exchange it for his new DSLR Canon EOS 70D. So, I thought, of course, and we made the deal! The new camera stirred my ambition to do more digital photography, as well as awakened my basic past knowledge of photography.
That October, I went hunting with my camera for the first time. My wife, Rita, and I drove to Lake Antholz at the month’s end armed with my Canon EOS 70D with a 50mm Canon 1.8. I foraged around for the perfect shot, but I only did end up taking two photos!
Photos by Eberhard Grossgasteiger
We returned home and life moved onward, while the camera vanished along with those two photographs in our living room cupboard.
They remained there, lonely as could be, until January 5th, 2017. At this time, I ventured out to photograph once more. I remember the day exactly, it was brutally cold, -15 degrees and the wind were blowing hard. So, it felt to be – 25 degrees. Rita and I headed into our neighboring village to document winter at its finest. I was only able to take a handful of images, maybe 10, before the bitter temperature returned me to the car. I have rarely seen my wife as angry as she was at that time!
At home, the question was now what to do with the photos. I felt compelled to show them to others. Well, as is normal in such moments nowadays, Google was asked first and told me to upload the pictures to Unsplash. So, I developed the photos, and uploaded them once to see what would happen. Nothing did! Taking it as a cue, I abandoned my aspirations to photograph. Then in April 2017, a colleague of mine laid the tiles of a terrace during a house renovation and wished to document the process. He made mention of my old photography past. Once he did so, a flame flickered, and I simply had to take a few pictures of him, spontaneously and off the cuff. When I returned home, I sorted the pictures only to find on the SDCH-card the two photographs taken in the neighboring village of Lake Antholz on that fateful cold January day. As I looked closer, I saw them with fresh eyes, and in doing so I smiled. These images were not bad, and perhaps even remarkable. Again, I thought, I will upload one of them to Unsplash. And so, I jumped back at Unsplash, uploaded the photographs… to nothing, once more. But this time, I did not close this chapter and carry on. I logged back into Unsplash a short while later. It was then that I noticed the RED POINT of messages shining for the first time in the upper right corner. I clicked on it to find a huge number of people liked my photo! WOOOAAAW, amazing! My second impulse was to upload the photos taken of the builder who did the terrace to see how they would fare. I uploaded, waited, and “caabum,” again I was placed in the editorial feed.
From this point on I have been addicted to Unsplash!
Photos by Eberhard Grossgasteiger
How do you feel your photography has grown since you started out on Unsplash?
I think I have an extraordinary gift to see, interpret, and capture the beauty and essence of a scene. However, I was still missing at the beginning of my reawakened passion for photography the photo-technical know-how. I came across several professional portals of online courses where I learned the essentials of modern photo development in Photoshop and Lightroom. But what I continued to lack was professional feedback from specialists. This is where Unsplash has greatly served my journey. This forum has given me the opportunity to understand what constitutes a special photo. For example, if my image received an honorable placing in the editorial feed, then it was probably technically or artistically good. Based on this, I then tried to refine this technique further and further: to set tonal nuances exactly the way I wanted them to be, to darken or lighten the shadow right there and to tone it exactly the way my intuition and skill guided me. Still, what supports the maturing process of a photographer is the unpredictable nature of Unsplash. You see, a technique or a certain mood only works for a while. In this respect, it was important for me to study and understand my images with a keen eye toward the ones that made it to the editorial feed versus those that weren’t considered.
Photos by Eberhard Grossgasteiger
One must have the willingness to study, that essential drive, paired with passion. I am still convinced that I have a lot to learn technically, but I do know that I feel extraordinarily blessed right now to have this spring of talent and a creative thirst. Unsplash has shown me how I can be successful with these prerequisites. In a nutshell, many thanks to Unsplash for inspiring my ambition and enhancing my craft! I am a far better photographer today due to this forum!
One last thing…
Since I have achieved this honor, a mention of my wife is also overdue. Countless times over the years she has risen at 4.30 in the morning(or sometimes even earlier) to accompany me on location. When I have said to her that I could go alone, her answer was always the same:“If you are going, then I am going too!” Often, we drove on mountain roads where only one car could go in each direction and when I think of how she sat next to me with her face distorted with fear… simply put, she’s a trooper and a treasure! For me, it felt mostly not dangerous. If we would ask Rita, however, it would be a completely different story!
Photos by Eberhard Grossgasteiger
How often have we frozen our hands off, our feet sopping wet, and still the humor was always good – most of the time! We were and will always be a team!