Thomas Hoepker biography

Thomas Hoepker is a German photographer who was born on the 10^th June 1936 in Munich, Germany. He worked for a company called Magnum Photos and used to take photographs for the company. Before joining the company, he used to take photographs from the age of 16 and used to sell them in order to finance his education. While in school, he studied art history and archaeology, then worked as a photographer for Münchner Illustrierte and Kristall between 1960 and 1963, reporting from all over the world. He then worked as cameraman and producer of documentary films for German television in 1972, and from 1974 collaborated with his wife, the journalist Eva Windmoeller, first in East Germany and then in New York, where they moved to work as correspondents for Stern in 1976. From 1978 to 1981 Hoepker was director of photography for the American edition of Geo. He joined Stern magazine as a photo-reporter in 1964. Hoepker worked as art director for Stern magazine in Hamburg between 1987 and 1989, when he became a full member of Magnum. Specializing in reportage and stylish colour features, he received the prestigious Kulturpreis of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie in 1968. Among many other awards for his work, he received one in 1999 from the German Ministry of Foreign Aid for Death in a Cornfield, a TV film on Guatemala. Today Hoepker lives in New York. 

He shoots and produces TV documentaries together with his second wife Christine Kruchen. He was president of Magnum Photos from 2003 to 2006. A retrospective exhibition, showing 230 images from fifty years of work, toured Germany and other parts of Europe in 2007. I think one his most common photograph would have to be his 9/11photograph that caused a lot of controversy when it was released to the public. Judging from some of the photographs I have seen by him.

 I have to say his work is indeed colourful and as well show different lifestyles lived by different sorts of people all over the world. I think his other piece of work that is very popular is the set of photos he took of the great Muhammad Ali, who was a great boxer during his time. At the moment he has book called ‘New York’ where he vividly captures the city’s complex spirit in all its many moods while documenting the most recent fifty-plus years of the city’s history. The images from this book range from the early 60s through 9/11, and up to the very present including the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In this book he also documents a true New York with its diverse inhabitants and the allure of its prominent landmarks and hidden, far-flung corners and conveys a vivid sense of the city’s physical landscape and intricate urban culture. Sincerely speaking I think Thomas Hoepker is not the best photographer whose work I have seen before but I have to say he is good at what he does and he is also good at telling a story in his work.