My Portrait by Jonathan Schmidt-Ott
In 2020, in Biarritz, Jonathan and I decided to meet for coffee after exchanging memories of vacations, our careers, and travels. The afternoon unfolded with a creative energy, where every conversation seemed to fuel our connection. Over time, Jonathan captured spontaneous moments, raw portraits that spoke to this budding friendship. Discover a portrait of our encounter, taken in the moment.
From Film to Photography
Born in Berlin, visionary by nature. Jonathan Schmidt-Ott doesn’t just photograph, he sculpts light, he hunts the moment. Born in 1976, the multidisciplinary artist moves between photography, film editing, and curating exhibitions. Each image is a fragment of history, a suspended instant between two realities.
Editing, rhythm, intuition. Graduating in editing and montage from Babelsberg Konrad Wolf Film University in 2010, Jonathan quickly shifted his gaze from film alone to explore a broader universe: that of fragmented storytelling. His work explains nothing, it suggests, disturbs, intrigues.
In 2014, he founded Dzialdov, a hybrid space in Berlin where he brought together artists and experiments. A creative laboratory where he both exhibits and observes, deconstructing the image to better reassemble it.
In 2018, the Vollmond exhibition at Galerie Michael Janssen made a powerful impact: vast photographs of horses caught in a nearly mystical light. A dialogue between raw strength and fragile elegance. It’s this tension he captures—the float between the tangible and the undefined.
Meeting at the Café. Portraits in Biarritz
"St. Gil" His New Photobook
His latest project, St. Gil, published in 2024 by Spector Books, is a series of photographic diptychs that sketch a sensory map of Berlin and other European cities. St. Gil is a book of visual enigmas, where each diptych acts like a line of poetry. Jonathan Schmidt-Ott deconstructs photographic narration to awaken the viewer’s imagination. Between enigmatic portraits, brutalist architecture, and fragments of daily life, the images converse, reflect, and oppose one another, creating a hypnotic rhythm. Inspired by his background as an editor, the artist builds an aesthetic of controlled chance, where place and time dissolve into an imaginary city bathed in a perpetual summer light. St. Gil is a sensory journey where images trigger other images, a tribute to the power of free interpretation.
Schmidt-Ott plays with time, patterns, and memory. His approach is that of an editor seeking the hidden rhythm of things—the pulse of a city, the thrill of a glance. A photography that freezes nothing but opens a thousand doors.
