Sebastian Philipp

„Photography allows me to capture magical moments that we rarely consciously perceive in everyday life. It's like stopping time. Like taking a look at one of millions of individual parts that together make up our image of the world.”

Reportage photography filters magical moments from seemingly everyday life, thereby promoting greater awareness of the people involved. It often portrays people who otherwise contribute their personality and creativity to our society unnoticed.

Many assignments result in photographs that convey inspiration and vitality, either as individual images or as series. These are very special moments that capture this mood. They arise when people meet, communicate, and interact.

The story behind the photo

In reportage photography, the camera takes an observational, documentary perspective and tries to disturb the action as little as possible. After a short time, the protagonists become accustomed to the photographer's presence.

The story behind the photo

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This picture was taken during a reporting trip with Caritas Austria to a temporary refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley. The girl in the photo had fled Syria with her family just a few days earlier. Their accommodation: a privately rented, converted greenhouse – makeshiftly lined with large rolls of paper originally manufactured for product packaging.

The child was playing with one of the unused rolls when she looked directly into my camera at the moment I pressed the shutter—calm, alert, serious.

What touched me deeply about this scene was that the image symbolizes the contradictions of our world. On the one hand, a life marked by flight, loss, and improvisation. On the other, the industrial consumer promise of a seemingly perfect world. In this emergency shelter, these two realities come together involuntarily – and tell, without words, of the suffering of flight and the longing for a life of dignity.

#Mauthausen