Who am I? My journey

A little about me Fred Eltschinger

An amateur photographer driven by passion for nearly 30 years.

IT & Quality Manager
Deputy Head of the Support Division
Swiss Federal Roads Office

Street photography was my first playground. In the early 2000s, while I was still discovering photography, my very first images were made outdoors, during my travels and chance encounters. Long before I thought in terms of series or style, I simply photographed whatever caught my eye: a silhouette, a light, a gesture, or an ordinary scene that, for a split second, became something else entirely.

What I love about street photography is precisely this element of the unexpected—the unforeseen. The street does not pose and it does not offer second takes. It forces you to truly observe, to anticipate without directing, and to accept that some images appear only once. I am less interested in spectacle than in those small moments when people, architecture, shadows and chance come together to form a story. A good street photograph leaves room for the imagination: it reveals a fragment of life without telling everything.

My journey later led me to concert photography, which I practised for about ten years. There I found the same energy of the moment, unpredictable light and the need to release the shutter at exactly the right time. Later, after a few years away from photography, I moved into model shoots and portraiture. This more carefully constructed practice taught me another way to collaborate and portray a person. Both chapters—concerts and model shoots—are now behind me. I chose to stop those activities and return fully to what first made me want to take photographs.

From now on, I am dedicating myself exclusively to street photography. This is where I feel most free, curious and attentive to the world around me. This return is not another detour but a clear direction: observing life as it unfolds and building, image by image, a personal body of work around moments that are spontaneous, sometimes imperfect, but deeply alive.

My earlier model and portrait work remains online as a record of that journey at shooting.eltschinger.photo.