Photo Live Magazine First Issue Photo live - cat's add in 2017 versioin | Page 109

music background, I knew how to
produce audio, which helped me re-
cord my first podcasts. My interest
in photography gave me something
to talk about and my business back-
ground allowed me to understand
internet distribution and also helped
me cross the language barrier. I am
German, back then, podcasting was
so new, there were virtually no pod-
cast listeners in my home country.
Podcasting allowed me for the first
time to find an international audi-
ence. And while I cringe a bit, when
listening to my first few episodes,
over time and with the weekly train-
ing, my English and my production
skills improved. I released my first
episode in April 2005 and the first
months were quite a rollercoaster
ride. I saw this whole field more as a
playground than anything else, and I
had the very naive assumption that I
could explain photography in about
10 episodes. That was my initial
plan, but after a few episodes, Tips
from the Top Floor had 500 listeners.
When Apple later that year released
iTunes 4.9 with podcast support,
that number literally grew ten-fold
overnight.
And a workshop leader?
At the same time as more and more
people discovered the show, I began
receiving emails from listeners ask-
ing me if there would ever be a “live
version” of the podcast. Something
along the lines of a workshop. So I
planned out a first event in my stu-
dio here in Germany and a wonderful
group of people showed up from all
over the world. We had participants
from the US, the UK, from Italy and
from Germany. That’s when I realized
that holding photo workshops had a
chance become part of my business.
This initial workshop in 2006 was fol-
lowed by my first US workshop tour
in 2007 and 2008. Through podcast-
ing I also met Jon Miller, a film-maker
from Colorado who produced “The
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