Some of the most important encounters of my working life have started with me arriving somewhere loaded like a pack mule. The one with Geli started with me arriving in a Vienna studio loaded like a pack mule and realising that the two women I was meant to work with that day had already started without me.
That was 2014. I had been photographing for a while by then, in a phase where I was actively doing model shoots — most of them between 2011 and 2016, often with changing makeup artists, sometimes none at all, because for brass and musician sessions I'm almost always on my own anyway, and you can't drag a makeup artist along on a fifteen-minute rehearsal break. There was no “my makeup artist”. There was only “the makeup artist for today”.
The shoot that day had been booked by Victoria, a woman who had written to me because she needed professional portraits. I was in the mood for new portfolio material, so out of two loose interests came an appointment. What I didn't know: Victoria had organised a makeup artist on her own. My friend Alex was probably with me that day — in those years he helped at many of my shoots and carried the gear with a composure no one else matched. So when I came in keeled over and weighed down, the two of them were already engrossed in work. Geli — Angelika Oswald — looked at me as if she hadn't quite decided whether she could like me or not. Slightly distant, a bit grumpy, very focused on what she was doing. My first thought was roughly: well, this is going to be interesting.
Then I watched her work for a while.
Within the first hour it was clear that Geli not only knows her job but loves it. She talked with Victoria about makeup, look and mood so precisely and at the same time so easily that Victoria immediately relaxed — a mix of expertise and casualness that you don't encounter often. Within the second hour it was clear that Geli and I are riding the same wave — on a capsized boat, screaming, but with a cocktail in hand. That may sound like a strange comparison, but it's a precise one. Geli has a sense of humour that either works immediately or not at all, and mine is wired roughly the same way. We started messing around on set and we never stopped.
What I only understood over the following sessions: makeup isn't Geli's original profession. She studied journalism, holds a Master's in communication science, and has been writing for as long as she could write. The makeup training she added pragmatically at some point, after the sober realisation that as a writer you rarely get to live off what you write. Today she's also a ghostwriter on the side, writing books for other people that appear under different names — an activity that demands roughly as much discretion as her on-set commentary is unfiltered. Which makes for an interesting mix, because the on-set makeup job is, in essence, the theatrical stage for someone whose main work is putting words in other people's mouths.
Out of that first day came, over the following years, somewhere between fifteen and twenty shared shoots — many for my charity calendar project, some editorial, a few beauty sessions in the studio. It was a very concentrated phase. At that time Geli knew a whole Viennese subculture on the side: she ran a small beauty salon, organised bachelor and hen parties, and consequently had contacts with limousine services, locations and models that an ordinary photographer would never have had access to. Anyone looking for “Jack of all trades” as a profession is correctly addressed at Geli. Her professional path has led her through some remarkable potholes over the years — stories about which I'd only say: still waters run deep, or, as one might put it in Geli's case, some CDs need an extra sticker. Anyone who wants to know more can get her book — should it ever appear.
Somewhere between all those shoots I took passport photos of her husband Max at her place — one of the most likeable people you could wish for Geli. That was one of those unspectacular moments that turn out to be the bigger ones in hindsight. From that point on it was no longer “the makeup artist who helps on my shoots”, but “Geli, whose living room I know”. Max, her mother, her cat, and through the opening party for her studio even her parents-in-law — over time I got to know them all. That's more than most professional relationships leave behind in the end.
Then, around 2016, came a phase in which photography was too much for me for a while. The calendar project was finished, I had worked intensely for years, and as far as model photography was concerned, I was done — at least for the time being. I kept shooting a lot for Schagerl after that and took private snapshots, but I had no interest in model shoots for some time. Only around 2018 or 2019 did I find my way back in, through EDC and product photography — through a different door, so to speak. Geli stayed through those years anyway — as a friend, not as a makeup artist.
What makes our friendship special is nothing spectacular: we see each other rarely, we rarely hear from each other, and when we do meet again, it feels as if we had last seen each other yesterday. That is the kind of friendship I consider the most honest — one that doesn't require constant tending, because the foundation is in place and nobody has to prove that it is.
Geli is from Vienna, which has made everything logistically easier, because I have successfully avoided driving in Vienna myself for years. She has not. So she drives. Picks me up from the station, transports gear, knows every Viennese back yard where you can park halfway inconspicuously. A logistically key role that shouldn't be underestimated in Vienna.
She has been writing her own book for ages, which never quite seems to be finished — which may be down to the fact that she's currently spending her writing energy on other people. I tease her about it so reliably that it has become part of our standard repertoire by now. She retaliates with behind-the-scenes photos in which I, contorted, sweaty or both, try to find a usable camera angle — photos the world is probably better off not seeing.
Geli, by the way, doesn't like having her photo taken — which is a remarkable detail for someone who spends so much time on the other side of the camera. That is exactly why I consider it appropriate, in this article, to include two or three pictures of her from the past few years. She will hate me for it. But that is part of the repertoire.
What makes Geli and me a good team is actually not so much her makeup work or my photography. It's the fact that we tease each other so reliably and mess around on set so persistently that the mood is loosened within the first few minutes, whether the model wants it to be or not. Whoever arrives nervous notices after a short while that there are two funny crazy people at work here — in the positive sense, we claim at least. What we are actually doing is classic tension management, just packaged in a form that doesn't feel like tension management. Geli probably has the better tool for it, because words are her profession and the brush was added later. I deliver the photographic pauses in between.
Today, more than ten years after that first shoot with Victoria, Geli is no longer “the makeup artist”. She is the friend I call when I have an appointment in Vienna. The person who collects my worst behind-the-scenes photos in a folder and sends them to me on unfavourable days. The Magistra who writes for other books and whose own may never appear — or one day will after all.
We met in a Vienna studio in 2014, because another woman had booked a makeup artist. We have been riding the same wave ever since — sometimes controlled, often chaotic, mostly with a cocktail in hand.
Victoria, if you ever read this: thank you. You didn't just get a few nice portraits, you also dropped off, on the side, the most important working relationship of the past few years. Some hand-washes-the-other arrangements wash more than they promise.