It is certainly a nice surprise that I was named second year in a row winner of the PDN award 'The Look'. After Leica I'm also pleased to welcome a new SS16 seasonal partnership with Wotancraft. It is a true pleasure to see how they share the same endless passion and keep an eye on details. They really care and offer a rare quality and customizations I haven't found in other professional designer photographer backpacks to date.

Named this year's winner of the PDN award 'The Look' (Runway), another busy year is still unfolding. Collaborations and publications, both in Fashion and Art are continuous. More than 200 fashion shows have been captured on and off the runway this year, a collaboration with NASA is in development, and editorial projects are constantly in the works. Finally, I'm also happy to welcome Seagate, the world's leading manufacturer of disk drives, as a sponsor.

After capturing more than 40 fashion shows and backstage moments with my own perspective at New York Fashion Week again earlier this month, Paris Fashion Week RTW FW14 is next, Feb 25-Mar 5. A partnership with Leica has been formed as well. The pre-announced portfolio update coming later this year will for the first time also show a selection of this huge body of work that arose at runway shows worldwide.

2013 was an insanely busy year. Exhibitions in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and Vermont. Photography awards. A stage video production for the Theater Basel, Switzerland. Work in the California desert has been continued.

Documentary work, capturing Terry Richardson, Mario Testino, Coco Rocha, Paris Hilton, Naomi Campbell, Karlie Kloss, Grace Coddington, the designers with their collections, and many more at Fashion Weeks throughout the year. Coverage of more than 80 fashion shows all access, and America's Next Top Model backstage. Working on many fashion shoots and collaborations with amazing talents.

I also gladly accepted the offer to lead the digital arts and photography lab, and to teach at Claremont Graduate University's MFA art institute in Southern California.
And finally, following an invitation for a truly unique STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the year brought first meetings in Boston.

A major website overhaul is in the works to reflect the developments of the last years. It will then include more recent media art projects, and also a first glimpse of the new body of fashion work. Although more and more of my works are evolving at the intersection of art and fashion, on the website both fields will be divided into two separate sections to make it easier to explore only the one or the other.

I'm looking forward to an exciting new year filled with dreams, passion, and good madness.

I'm on so many exciting projects right now that I barely find time to post some updates. Also, I would love to share many more details but unfortunately some projects are in too early stages or collaborations I'm not yet allowed to talk about. [Did I mention 'exciting'?!] For me this is definitely the year of collaborations in fashion, arts, and science, and of concretizing the roles of natural environments/deserts and their juxtaposition to patterns of civilization/cities in my work.

Repeatedly, I find myself also focusing on the line between non-destructive/non-intrusive and destructive/intrusive. One of many works based on this theme is the ongoing 'Dressed Landscape' body of work creating visual interventions by ephemeral non-invasive means.

Some recent documentary series: Backstage/runway shots with America's Next Top Model at LAFW AW 13/14 and with designers also part of Heidi Klum's current Germany's Next Top Model cycle at LAFW SS 13. - With a view on the collisions of the protagonists of fashion shows.

I also feel honored to be nominated for Black & White Photographer of the Year 2013 at the WPGA.

Photography works are on display as part of the '2013 MOPLA+Smashbox' group show at the iconic Smashbox Studios in West Hollywood - an official 'Month of Photography Los Angeles' exhibition.
Reception: Wed, Apr 17, 7-10PM - runs through May 12, 2013.

As finalist of the international photography competition ONWARD Compé '13 some of my work is also on display in Philadelphia/USA starting with a reception on Sat, Apr 13, 2013. ONWARD Compé is part of the annual photography festival and conference in Philadelphia.

Finally, different type of work can be seen in the exhibition 'Photography and Environmental Concern' - curated by Kate Ware, Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art. It is on display at the PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont/USA, March 30-April 20, 2013.

An assignment for the Theater Basel in Switzerland has been completed earlier this month and premiered on Feb 8, 2013. The production of this video on stage work for 'Like a Rolling Stone' started last December in Southern California deserts and is projected onto an oversized video backdrop.
The kind of integration/interaction between elements on screen, the actors, and the set design on stage makes this project very special. The shoots on the ground and in the air resulted in countless hours of footage, involved driving of many vintage cars, new Dylan interpretations as well as desert road movie sceneries and sixties aesthetics.

Upcoming exhibitions and new projects keep me busy just as the ongoing wrap-ups of the works from Joshua Tree. Photography work is on display at the OCCCA [Orange County Center for Contemporary Arts], as part of a group show starting today, Dec 1, and running through Jan 12, 2013. Some other work is also part of the new 'Landscape' issue of F-Stop Magazine, out today.
The first three conceptual series from JT can be seen here: Mirrored, Parking in the Park as well as the much acclaimed Tree Lightings. More to come.

A small selection of my daily diary notes from the first five weeks at the JT Highlands Artist Residency is now available for download. The JT Diaries read by the program's curators Jim Berg and Frederick Fulmer in their kitchen made their first appearances as an installation at the JTHAR exhibition in August. A limited edition of the whole diary in form of an audio book is set to be released in November.

This high desert environment had a great impact on me and I expect influences showing up in my works for years. It was also an incredibly productive time and it was an honor to be invited to extend the residency - not far away at the Rieman's guest house - for another six weeks. Now back in Los Angeles more details about the body of work in JT will be presented over time and some of the works are still ongoing.

I'm very proud of each of my sponsor partners and continuos relations with them. It's important to say that partnerships are only established with some companies producing very unique or high class products I'm absolutely convinced of their quality and value for my artistic processes and demanding productions. They are all carefully hand selected. Now it's time to announce some new partnerships.

A partnership with MaxBotix originally reaches back to 2006 and I'm excited that it has been renewed in June now and extended to use many more of their sensors and modules in upcoming works.
I also welcome Electrotap as a new sponsor. Their high-speed interface 'Teabox' f.i. has already been an integral part in some of the SOUND NOMADS performances in Israel before.
Last but not least I'm happy to have iWorkCase on board. Their riggid solutions for laptop use in extremes like the desert will be unvaluable. Their workstations are in use by many leading photographers, studios, and movie productions worldwide.

Finally, thanks for some support from Sekonic and MAC Group.
And a very special thanks goes to all people who supported the current artist residency on Kickstarter.

I was awarded an artist residency at Joshua Tree in California for July-August 2012. Today is day 4. This represents an exceptional opportunity to work in this high desert environment which is for me incomparable to anything else and a truly unique source of inspiration. During the residency interdisciplinary studies/experiments and a new series of site-specific works will arise.

New fairly large photography series have been pre-released.

Pop Licorice was shot in five different locations earlier this year. Mulholland (yes, indeed shot on Mulholland Drive this month) is a road trip with a stranger. A getaway with soap, romance, melancholia, and craziness.
Brian and Molly is partly inspired by Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, and Fitzcarraldo. An expedition with a certain mixture of madness and insanity but also sensuality and romance at the same time.

Some recent photography work is ready to be seen as part of five new series: Rock Noir, No Trespassing, Playball, The Botanist, and Blinding Pink.

The update comes along with the new lookbook section. It's meant to be refined constantly.

In the framework of 'Hidden & Forbidden Identities' SOUND NOMADS works will be on display at multiple venues in Venice/Italy during the Biennale 2012. The exhibition will take place from February 11 to March 10, screenings February 11-21.

Among the venues are Palazzo Albrizzi/Cannaregio, Procuratie Court Yards/San Marco, Giardini Greenhouse/Castello, Parish Church San Giovanni Battista in Bragora/Castello, Venezia Terminal Passeggeri/Stazione Marittima/Dorsoduro, Residence I.R.E Zitelle.

A new personal section of self-interviews is up and running and will extend over time with self-reflections.

A small matching photo series is available as well: LA Night. It reflects my initial feelings when I moved to Los Angeles earlier this year. It seems you know everything already from the movies, but at the second sight you discover it's real.

Some new photo series can be found in the following sections:
Conceptual: White Dots: Gray, Silver. Editorial: Bombay Beach, Dunes, Heat and Dust, Orange Maze.

Gorgeous locations have been discovered once again and as you can see even at this time of the year it's still warm in some places of Southern California ...

It's time to proudly announce the launch of this totally redesigned website gerger.com. A very ambitious rethinking and development of a clean and very reduced design. Content and structure are further refined and backed by the greatly enhanced, self developed o0oo System V6. This content management system has tons of new innovations on board, greatly enhanced speed, and moved into the cloud (AWS). More about the tight Flickr and Lightroom integration and some groundbreaking workflows in a future blog entry. At the same time the research area is moving to a new home with another upcoming launch of the studio's LA K50 website.

As much as I love design, it still turned out to disrupt artistic works and content on this site again and again. It's a balancing act between silence, aesthetics, expressions, emotions, statements, character, and beauty. I think, for the first time i really nailed my own hopes and expectations with a relaunch of this portfolio and platform. Only time will tell, but surprisingly I'm contented and not so restless which is quite unique.

I'm very excited to unwrap a new sponsor partnership with X-Rite. It's important to say that partnerships are only established with companies producing or offering very high class products/services I'm absolutely convinced of their quality and value for demanding productions.

You really can't go better than X-Rite if it comes to professional color control. X-Rite, which now includes color industry leader Pantone, is the global leader in color science and technology. Besides its use in photo productions, an i1Photo/Publish Pro will be also used in a new project in a pretty uncommon way.