That is a really good question. Who am I? Perhaps a question everybody asks themselves, but no one is able to answer it to a point where satisfaction with the answer is reached. Who am I? The truth is, I can’t give a definitive answer to this — I can try to give an answer that is valid only at this specific time in history, the time I am trying to find an answer to “Who am I?”. Tomorrow I might be a different person, and the answer might change as well.
Today is the 1st of April 2024, 6:39 p.m., and this is who I am now:
Photo: Moritz Krause
I am Moritz, 28 years old and living in one of the most beautiful valleys in the world: Chamonix. What brought me here in the first place was probably my desire for adventures and the love for mountains. I am an alpinist, a skier, a hiker and a climber, and Chamonix seems to be the perfect base to all of my needs.
I’ve always been adventurous, my family introduced me to the mountains at a very young age and I ski longer than I can remember. But I am also a nerd and interested in all the tech out there. When I was eight my grandfather bought a camera to document his travels, but this camera ended up being used by me probably more than by himself.
I would invite friends over to my house to star in my first self-written films. I would film our house, our pets, our vacations — I even was a YouTuber for a couple of years, and for that time (2010?) actually pretty successful. Those videos are still online by the way and if you should ever find them I’ll be greatly impressed!
This classic story — a boy picking up a camera and pursuing a career in filmmaking — continues to this date. I am still picking up my camera, I am still interested in all the latest tech, I am still creating films. All of this makes me happy, and for me is an important factor to keep on doing what I do and continue to look for my true destiny.
Let’s put this ‘thinking about the meaning of life’ aside. What did I do to end up where I am today?
Photo: Moritz Krause
Roughly ten years ago I decided to enter the professional world of film & photo. Two years later I got my degree and due to a chain of circumstances I ended up starting my career as a self-employed business owner, skipping the phase of employment and getting all that experience in agencies or film production companies. I would not say this was the smartest thing I ever did, but it was the way that suited me the most and gave me the chance to explore what interests me and what doesn’t.
I don’t like committing to one thing only — I want to try it all. I wouldn’t say I am only a cameraman, only an editor, or only a still photographer. On my latest feature documentary film I filled the roles of the producer, director, writer, director of photography, editor, sound mixer, colorist and graphic artist. I am 100% convinced that if I only had two or three of those roles the film would be better (at least on a technical level), but I wouldn’t have enjoyed the process of creating it as much as I did.
I am a great advocate of doing whatever makes you the happiest, even if that means compromising on the outcome.
Photo: Moritz Krause
Slowly, after many years of editing for television as a main source of income I realized that this monotony won’t make me happy in the long run. This realization was perhaps the driving force to move to another country, to try something new, to put myself in a completely different situation and to change what I’ve been doing so far.
I need the constant change. I need new challenges, new adventures. Crossing Svalbard was a great adventure. Creating the documentary movie was an adventure of a whole other kind. Putting together a selection of photographs and building an online store for art prints was an adventure for sure. Writing these lines was a fairly small adventure, but still — reflecting on ones own personal life is never easy.
And now I am sitting here, curious: What will tomorrow bring?
