Rene Staud

René Staud himself developed a lighting system called "Magic flash" for automotive photography, a system that operates using powerful light reflectors that distribute light evenly and atmospherically. Gradually adapting this technique to digital, he decided to equip his studio with equipment specific to automobile photography in order to prepare the vehicles and stage them for the multiple advertising campaigns he carried out. He is the author of more than a hundred car photographs.

Considered one of the preeminent car photographers since the 1980s, René Staud collaborates with certain brands that have made the German automotive industry famous, such as Porsche and Mercedes-Benz. He became well known through the invention of the cutting-edge MagicFlash technique that functions with the aid of powerful light reflectors distributing light in a homogenous and atmospheric manner on an object. The photographer thus stages collector vehicles in his studio in Leonberg, Germany, taking into account their history, era, and the technological progess that they reflect. The Porsche T7, also known as the 695, is a prototype that was produced in 1961 and designed by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche. It was marketed under the name Porsche 911 a few years later.

There’s hardly a Porsche model left that hasn’t been photographed by René Staud, whose studio in the German town of Leonberg is the catwalk of the car industry. And while many photographic studios have disappeared in the wake of digitalisation, Staud Studios continues to boom.

Those who know René Staud might be surprised to hear it, but the well-known photographer no longer lives 24/7 for his business. He has handed over the reins of the legendary Staud Studios to his sons Pascal and Patrick. Does this mean retirement? On the contrary?– it means freedom! Staud could never be called retired: he’s a man of independent means.?

We meet him in the huge shoe box that is his photo studio in Leonberg, a place where he actually spends very little time these days. And yet more or less living in this box was once his professional life. Staud is dressed in black, as he presumably is every day, or at least every day he spends in public. He has not just made his style of photography a brand?– he is the brand: in terms of his style, and in terms of his appearance. Black trousers, black jacket, a plain white shirt underneath.