Picturing Emotions

M y name is Leoni Ridder. I was born in Germany, spent my childhood in Norway and, after moving back to Germany at the age of 9, finished high school in Canada. I have always loved traveling and already as a kid I was eager to document my adventures with a camera. Mountains, snow, wilderness and wildlife were my first and foremost sources of inspiration. After school I got a degree in psychology and am now self-employed in a private practice for psychotherapy. My affection for photography has in the meantime been growing steadily, and I have recently begun to combine it with my other great passion - music and classical instruments. I play the cello and have stood on numerous stages myself, so I can relate to that feeling of being in the moment, expressing emotions through sound and forgetting everything else for the time being. Emotion is what moves us all, what makes us feel alive and unique and what drives many of our actions. It gives meaning to life, it connects when it's shared and it can become a challenge when it exceeds our capacities. And it's emotion I'm trying to catch on camera, whether it is a portrait of a musician, a breathtaking landscape or maybe something else entirely.