Carmen & Ingo Photography
Photography
INTERVIEW
When Carmen and Ingo enter the room, the sun rises and the room fills with laughter and good humour. With them, you completely forget that filming and photography can actually be exhausting.
As 1607 ensemble, we had the great pleasure of filming and photographing several times with Carmen & Ingo Photography in our – for the cosmopolitan wedding photographer duo out of the box – projects. On the occasion of our collaboration with early music bird, we seized the opportunity and invited the two of them for a conversation centred around the concept album. We learnt about one or two of the ingredients for success and the “recipe for life” of the two well-known influencers from Carinthia.
Carmen & Ingo Photography
“from a hobby to a profession, so to speak.”
How did you get into photography?
We were also interested in the subject separately, but completely at hobby level really. After we met in 2003, we spent a lot of time working on photography as a hobby. Driven by the fact that we were so dedicated to photography, we wanted to do better and improve. We then went on many trips together and took photos constantly. The quality of the photos was poor, but it was just a lot of fun.
And so it came about that the first people came up to us and said: “Can you take our picture?”, within our family, then friends of theirs. Then came the whole thing with the weddings, but all on a friendly basis. At some point, it wasn’t just friends anymore, and that’s when photography turned into a business: from a hobby to a profession, so to speak.
You’re masters of backlight photography. What’s special for you about the ‘Golden Hour’ in the morning or late afternoon?
We are by no means masters of light, photography or anything else. We’ve been doing it for a while and we’ve always enjoyed working with backlighting.
At some point, we managed to understand the whole thing from all our experiments in the early years in such a way that we could make it reproducible and that we simply understood the light.
That’s one of the most important things in photography. If you understand light, then you also know how to use it. And when it comes to backlight shots in particular, an early morning, sunrise or sunset – it depends on the time of year, of course – but these times are best suited for backlight shots because they produce a very soft light and working with the backlight simply leads to the best results.
The special thing is that it simply looks the way you imagine it. It’s much nicer somehow than glaring sunlight at midday, because that’s simply far too harsh.
Towards evening and in the morning, the light is simply even softer. Everyone can see this when they see a sunset or a morning sunrise. Then you simply notice this peculiarity. It’s pretty similar all over the world. In the winter months or when it’s darker, it’s more or less like twilight all day long, depending on where you live. But where we live, there are fantastic evening moods, or in the morning between the mountains and so on, and it’s also a lot of fun to photograph at that time. But we’re not morning people, so we tend to shoot in the evening.
”(...) we simply understood the light. That's one of the most important things in photography.
Carmen & IngoPhotography

You’ve been in the business for years; you’re constantly evolving; it’s a pleasure to watch: What drives you?
Basically, we only do what we enjoy, that’s the case with everything. In photography, too, we have always “let things go” that we no longer enjoy. That means it changes too. And whether we continue to do so now simply depends on how much we enjoy it. It’s also this “not having to”, the voluntary nature of our own work: that’s actually what we enjoy the most.
We’re not forced to do anything, so it’s not something you’re pushed into, something that you “have to” do, even if you’re not having fun anymore.
We do things that we enjoy and if we don’t enjoy them, then we don’t do them. And we’re happy that we still enjoy photography and working with people and photography as a medium. We also have a mixture of the two: We don’t just take photos; we also have knowledge transfer as a business concept in our company. That’s also something we really enjoy, helping other people to grow and become better, because it simply gives so much back
This means that, on the one hand, we have the opportunity to make people happy with the pictures and, on the other hand, we have the opportunity to simply pass on knowledge to people. That in turn makes us happy to see that people are successful and that they can build up their business etc.
That’s something that simply motivates us to keep going.
The day we don’t enjoy either of them anymore, will be the first day we stop.
Carmen & Ingo Photography
“It’s also this “not having to”, the voluntary nature of our own work: that’s actually what we enjoy the most. ”
Next big (small) goals?
The most important goal is to stay healthy and spend lots of time with Malia and to have a good time together. That’s always the most important thing on the horizon. Both professionally and privately, we all know that in times like these we have to look extremely far into the future, everything changes extremely quickly.
A big goal is to keep doing what we enjoy and to have the freedom to decide what that is. We work on this every day, so we are somewhat independent of certain issues. This also means that we may have to make sure that wedding photography, for example, is replaced by something else as a service at some point. And the coaching itself, the passing on of knowledge, will probably continue to exist or remain. But actually, photographing weddings now could, for example, mean that in ten years’ time it will no longer be a hot topic for us, because at the age of 50 we will no longer see ourselves at weddings as photographers.
It’s a great phase at the moment; we’re happy to still have lots of weddings but it’s definitely something we’ll probably change with a different daily routine.

Carmen & Ingo Photography
“we like to have a cozy time in the morning”
Do you have a morning ritual?
We try to do different things. When you have a child, the morning ritual is also dictated by the child. For us, that means school during the week. We have well-established routines as to who does what in the morning. Apart from that, if Carmen wakes up before the rest of us, for example, she reads a book, drinks a bit of coffee and enjoys the rising sun. I usually go out in the summer or in the warmer seasons in the morning to do sports. But apart from that, we don’t have a strict ritual every day. Again, we do what’s fun and we’re not such extreme morning people at the moment, so we don’t have such a fixed ritual. We do what is informal and we like to have a cozy time in the morning. Without any fixed appointments, we are free to decide when we want to start the day with work.
What’s indispensable for a successful morning?
A smile from our daughter when we wake up and that everyone is really in a good mood.
Carmen especially likes to listen to loud music and dance to it. We also try to dance together as a family sometimes in the morning, just to get a morning boost, just to get the day off to a positive start. It’s turned out to work very well because we’re not morning grouches, but Malia isn’t so “yay, get up” and “early riser” from time to time. She often likes to sleep a little longer and has a mind of her own in the morning. We’re definitely not people who start the day at 5am: but when we do get up, we try to start the day in a good mood.
And music helps, a bit of dancing helps, we also say to each other “It’s going to be a great day”, “We’re in a good mood”, “We’re fit, we’re healthy”, so a bit of mantra-like stuff, even to each other. That’s kind of the whole thing, we’re not grumpy, but we do like to sleep longer if we can.
This means that, on the one hand, we have the opportunity to make people happy with the pictures and, on the other hand, we have the opportunity to simply pass on knowledge to people. That in turn makes us happy to see that people are successful and that they can build up their business etc.
That’s something that simply motivates us to keep going.
The day we don’t enjoy either of them anymore, will be the first day we stop.
Carmen & Ingo Photography
A big goal is to keep doing what we enjoy and to have the freedom to decide what that is. We work on this every day, so we are somewhat independent of certain issues.
”This means that, on the one hand, we have the opportunity to make people happy with the pictures and, on the other hand, we have the opportunity to simply pass on knowledge to people.
Carmen & IngoPhotography

What time do you get up and how do you wake up – phone, alarm clock, cockerel crowing?
On a normal working day, we wake up between six and half past six and make sure that we can get Malia to school at 7:10. That’s a normal day and is usually heralded by the alarm clock or phone alarm. We don’t have cockerels crowing. But we do have the village bell at seven o’clock on the dot, which you can hear when the window is open and which also plays its part at the weekend. In summer, I sometimes get up earlier and go for a run, but that’s the way it is – a more informal start to the day.
Your favourite breakfast? In the morning: coffee, tea or …?
We’re both coffee drinkers, although we’ve been drinking a little less lately or trying to give it up altogether. But we also drink tea from time to time. With Malia, it’s really just water.
Your tip for a good start to the morning that works for you?
We love listening to loud music, music to sing along to, which can also be something a bit harder or in English. Malia also likes to join in. We also try our hand at music. Carmen in particular does it very intensively, even doing a kind of workout with dancing in the morning before showering. But otherwise it’s always: loud music and singing is always a good motivation to start the day.
Thank you for the inspiring interview, dear Carmen and dear Ingo!
Web: www.carmenandingo.com
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Interview led by Maria Weiss
All photographs on this page © Carmen & Ingo Photography