Hannes Schmid embodies the paradox of having operated at the forefront of contemporary artistic inquiries as a photographer for a long time without ever fully integrating himself into the current art scene. He remained an outsider because, until recently, he created images without declaring them as art. Since the 1970s, Schmid worked as a highly successful commercial photographer, which occasionally allowed him the opportunity to realize his own projects without commercial pressures. In his fashion and reportage photography, he developed a unique sense for staging his models in completely unexpected locations. His elaborate photo campaigns to promote the legendary Marlboro Cowboys reveal how he acquired a profound knowledge of photography practice as an autodidact. Hannes Schmid, as known to those who know him personally, is an impatient, restless, even driven individual. He does not want to wait; instead, he follows chance and creates the moment of the century himself, in accordance with his belief in being in the right place at the right time or creating it himself for the concrete realization of his ideas. Schmid's commissioned photography is almost always staged, drawing inspiration from classical predecessors like Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, with a focus on the atmospheric integration of the subject into the environment. Schmid frequently intensifies his subjects by choosing exotic and high-alpine settings, whether in the jungles of Borneo, on treacherous overhanging rock faces of the Eiger North Face, or on glaciers right in front of Mount Everest at 5545 meters above sea level. In Schmid's fashion photography, it is almost never without the thrill of real danger for him and his models. Capturing such extraordinary scenes is also possible thanks to his phenomenal ability to inspire people to embrace his ideas. For him, it is a given that models would balance on the backs of unpredictable herds of elephants in Sumatra, rather than simply posing between two circus elephants as Avedon did. No one has ever replicated this feat to date. Hannes Schmid is the 007 of photography. His empathy and his existentially grounded interest in the human subject lead him to unique situations. He has the ability to fully integrate into group settings, build trust with others, and live with them in their life rhythms for weeks and months. Schmid's photographs of the indigenous people of the West Papuan rainforest or the backstage images of international rockstars are incredibly authentic, as if one were moving invisibly among the protagonists. When looking at Schmid's captures, we always see something we have never seen before. Schmid creates new images, expands our stored visual reservoir, and helps us see the familiar in a new light. Matthias Frehner Art historian, curator and publicist