Emma
finding beauty in the chaos
Hey, my name is Emma and I am a passionate product photographer at Hilti in Schaan. You normally find me outside on a construction site rolling around in the dirt to get the perfect shot of some drillhammer. I started at Hilti 6 years ago as a photography assistant, but they quickly realized that I couldn’t leave my fingers from my mentor’s camera and promoted me to a photographer after one year. It wasn’t exactly my dream to work on construction when I started my creative career in 2016 as an apprentice in a specialized photography store. There we also had a small studio where I took every opportunity to get a camera in my hands but more in the direction weddings or events, family portraits and so on little did I know that I will flourish in this field of product photography and one day work for a successful global company and being a part of shaping this cool brand.
What am I doing when my camera batteries are charging? I spent my last 26 years in Austria where I was born and raised between beautiful mountains. I love the outdoors in general. In summer, you will find me hanging from a rope trying to climb some rocks, or on the beautiful Austrian mountain trails. In winter, I am on my snowboard or splitboard looking for the best powder I can find. The rest of my free time I spend with my goats in our little mountain hut.
The ship, Norway
In 2022, I organized a Hilti production shoot in Norway with a team of 10 people (photo & video). The task was to create application pictures of a new product, but it turned out to be one of the jobs that remains close to my heart ever since. After a 3h car ride from the airport, we arrived at this GIGANTIC ship in Stord. I have to say I wasn't exactly happy to travel to an oil ship (due to my environmental beliefs) but wanted to give it a shot, as this felt like a "once in a lifetime" opportunity. After two days, we had captured all the images that Hilti requested. I then spent a whole day walking around on the ship, just talking to people and take pictures of them. They told me about their lives and how they got here and I met so many kind souls with interesting personalities. This is what I see when I look at this reportage.
Redbull x Hilti
What is the RedBull dual ascent? It’s a climbing competition on a 180m high dam in Versasca/Ticino. But what did I do there? The event is sponsored by Hilti, so they sent me to Ticino to work on a 1m x 4m platform with the route setting team for a whole day. Oh, did I mentioned that we were hanging 180m in the air? This was the perfect combination of my hobby and my job! I had such a great time seeing how this huge global event came to life, and getting these behind the scenes shots for the Hilti Marketing team at the same time!
the “day to day”
I’m not on big ships in Norway or hanging on huge dams every day. So what am I doing on a normal day? I’m in Hilti’s Webshop team where we launch 200 product pages a year. This means that I’m responsible for all the imagery you see in the online product catalog. I spend most of my time out in the field trying to capture our products in the most beautiful, yet authentic way possible. I work closely together not only with Hilti’s greatest minds, but also the greatest minds in construction. This job has taught me so much in so many different fields: creativity, leading projects, communication, problem solving, and more. I’ve developed a huge passion and knowledge in this field of photography, which I aim to make visible in my final images. I hope you can also see “the beauty in the chaos”.