Selina Ott in Grafenegg.
Grafenegg Castle does half the work for you as a photographer — and is overwhelming enough at the same time that you have to be careful not to forget the actual subject.
Selina and I have known each other since 2008. She was ten years old back then, I was already working in marketing at Schagerl. If someone had told me then that seventeen years later we would be standing in a Lower Austrian castle photographing the freshly crowned ARD music competition winner, I would probably have pulled a face and ended the conversation (joking ;-) ). But that's how it goes sometimes: a child with a trumpet almost bigger than herself turns into one of the most sought-after soloists of her generation — and the photographer who was already there back then still is.
The journey there was, as so often with my shoots, a material battle. Selina arrived with a suitcase full of dresses about as big as she was at the time we first met. And these weren't just any dresses: the wardrobe came from Katharina Reuschel, a Viennese designer who learned her craft as a couturière at Valentino in Rome and crafts true one-off pieces in her atelier.
On my side I arrived with kit that included the Sigma 105mm 1.4 — a lens that weighs about as much as a small dog, makes wonderful images, and reliably reminds you on the way why you actually switched to marketing. Monika, my colleague at Schagerl, came along as an extra pair of hands, and a make-up artist took care of touch-ups between sets. Four people, one castle, clearly too much equipment — and a day that felt more like an outing than work from the start.
A castle as stage
Grafenegg gives you a lot if you're willing to use it. We worked our way through the estate like a series of stage sets: the historic riding school with its chandelier, the baroque window facades scattering the late-summer light in every direction, the grand staircase at the main front, the castle park in the golden hour.
Each location had its own character — and Selina adapted to every space with the same composure that defines her playing. You set the light, suggest a direction, and the rest happens by itself, because the person in front of the camera knows what she's doing.
That's the luxury of working with someone you've known for years: nothing needs explaining, nothing needs forcing, nothing needs staging. A look, a quick nod, and both know where the next frame is going. The trumpet was sometimes the lead, sometimes a prop, sometimes simply there in frame because it belongs to Selina like her hands to her playing.
Classical elegance, modern visual language
The aim wasn't a classic press image. Grafenegg quickly tempts you into safe postcard motifs — castle, sun, smiling artist. We wanted something that takes the historic setting seriously without submitting to it.
Classical elegance, but with a visual language that works today and doesn't look like it was made thirty years ago. The black dress in the riding school, the chandelier above everything, directed light through the tall windows — images that show both the heritage of the place and the artist standing in it today.
A huge thanks to Schloss Grafenegg for the collaboration and the chance to photograph in such an outrageously photogenic place — and above all to Selina, for letting me hold the camera on this journey, time and again.