From Photo Assistant to Entrepreneur – What I Learned in 17 Years

In 2009 I stood in a photo studio in Pforzheim for the first time, as an intern. Today I run that studio as managing partner and have co-founded a second company, Luftschloss. In between lie 17 years, an abandoned degree, thousands of catalog images, and a few insights I wish I'd had earlier.

Detours aren't wasted time

My résumé isn't a straight line: civilian service and care work, studying civil engineering at KIT, then the switch into photography. For a long time I saw these stations as detours. Today I know better: care work taught me to work with people in difficult situations. My studies taught me structured thinking. I need both, every day, as an entrepreneur.

Craft builds judgment

I went through every stage of image production myself – assistant, trainee, advertising photographer, project lead. It was slow, but it built a foundation that can't be shortcut: I can judge my teams' work because I've done it myself. Whoever leads without knowing the craft has to believe. Whoever knows it can decide.

Change should begin before the crisis hits

The most important entrepreneurial step at Gieske Studios was moving into CGI and interactive product presentation – at a time when classic catalog photography was still doing well. That's exactly why it was the right moment. Whoever waits until the old business model starts crumbling negotiates from weakness. Whoever invests early can learn without pressure.

This pattern isn't a personal quirk but runs through the entire history of Gieske Studios: the early switch from analog to digital, later from pure photography to film and CGI. I had the luck of growing into a company that treats change not as a threat but as the normal state of things. Much of what I know about entrepreneurship I learned less from books than from that environment.

The same logic is behind Luftschloss: artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing the creative industry. You can wait for that – or build an agency that treats this change as core from day one.

Dropping out of university wasn't an easy call

One thing I'm often asked about: the abandoned civil engineering degree. In hindsight it sounds like a clear turning point; in truth it was an uncomfortable decision against the safe path. What helped me was less courage than honesty: I noticed I got up with energy for photography every day, and not for the lecture hall. An abandoned degree isn't wasted time if you take the structured thinking with you – and the insight into what you're not made for. Both are worth more than a diploma in a field you'd never have returned to.

You build companies around people

The service a studio or agency provides is interchangeable; the team is not. So the most important job of an entrepreneur isn't sales or strategy, but creating an environment where good people want to do excellent work. Everything else follows from that.

This holds especially now, when AI takes over so much execution. When tools accelerate the craft, the difference between interchangeable and outstanding becomes even more a question of people: their judgment, their taste, their willingness to take responsibility for a result. Technology democratizes execution – but it raises the value of good decisions. And those are made by people.

Conclusion

If I had to compress my path into one sentence: take what is seriously – and still build what isn't yet. That's exactly what the name Luftschloss (castle in the air) stands for.