IT Director By Day, Photographer By Night, John Wilhelm Gives His Daughters The Ride Of Their Lives

You may think that John Wilhelm is your average IT director, but at night he wears his superphotographer cape and takes his three daughters on wild adventures. From his secret ~~laptop desk~~ cave in Switzerland, John takes photos of his three daughters – Lou, 5, Mila, 2, and Yuna, 6 months – and composites them into scenes that will take your breath.

We asked John about his interaction with his daughters:

I think I have a pretty good emotional connection to my girls (also to the big one ;)). They can feel about how important this whole photo-stuff is for me and so they participate. I’m pretty motivated if an idea pops up in my head and I talk at a very early stage about it with my kids so they are prepared. Usually they say: No shooting today but perhaps tomorrow… it’s some sort of a game.

Easy shootings are the one during which the girls can wear cool, funny or princess-like clothes. Yes they’re girls . If it’s getting a little difficult (that means if a shooting takes longer than 2 minutes (and that’s no joke it has to go very fast) I admit I sometimes bait them with sweets or perhaps a few minutes of cartoon-watching on my iPad.

And about how they reacted to the final compositions: They like the final images but there’s no wow’s and awesome’s coming from them. They’re just too small to get it really what it’s all about.

Finally, we were surprised at John’s answer as to why wild life are featured so prominently on his work: Yep. There is. I was working for 11 years in a National Parc in Africa and for 2 years on a penguin-station on the South Pole….No just joking. I just love animals. I grew up in a family with many many pets. We had a little zoo at home.

If you were wondering about what gear John uses, his main tool are the Sony Alpha a7R, a Wacom Cintiq, and a set of Elinchrom Quadra Hybrid. There is a fuller list over at inMyBag. Though I have a feeling this work has nothing to do with gear.