Meet the team

CITY: Zürich
COURSES: Beginners, Night Photography, Travel Photography, Photoshop, Lightroom

Alex Tseli is a computer scientist and IT architect born in Moscow, Russia. He studied and worked in various Western European countries and has a passion for technology, algorithms and logical problems. This is balanced by his love for foreign languages (he speaks English, German, Russian and a little bit French), psychology and photography.
Based in Switzerland since 2007 he has visited over 50 countries and shares his passion for travel and photography with his audience on various social platforms. While not abroad or not giving workshops at Swiss Photo Club he enjoys hiking in the Alps with his wife and hunting the magic moments the nature shows us.
Alex is an all-rounder photographer and his works span from natural landscapes and street photography to astro- and drone photography as well as private sensual portraits. Lately he has focused on artistic landscape photography and developed the individual dreamy style characterized with rich colours and striking compositions. His photos were featured in various exhibitions and communities (including National Geographic Russia contests and others).
Join Alexís courses and learn not only fundamentals of taking and processing your photos, but his tricks and secrets, that will improve your photography skills, vision and social media engagement in a fun and effective way.

CITY: Zürich
COURSES: Video and Drone

Since 2018 I am working independently as a filmmaker with 8 years of experience. After doing an apprenticeship in a young production company for one year I decided to become independent to be able to work more creatively. In my free-time I practice Parkour/Freerunning and like playing the guitar. Also I am getting more and more into photography, although I still focus more on creating videos. 

CITY: Zürich
COURSES: Wildlife

Following a decade of working as a researcher in wildlife conservation, specializing in large felid ecology, Malini Pittet turned to wildlife photojournalism. The reason for the change in career was based on the possibility to reach a greater audience to create awareness about
conservation through photography and story-telling.

Malini was born and brought up in India and moved to Europe to attend university. She completed a Master degree in Biodiversity Conservation and Management at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent. Her various research projects gave her the opportunity to study leopards and tigers in India, Arabian leopards in Yemen as well as jaguars, pumas and ocelots in the Peruvian Amazon. Malini loves traveling and photographing wildlife around the world. Her travels have taken her to many countries around the world such as Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Oman, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Madagascar, Seychelles, Brazil and many more!

The combination of wildlife photography and traveling brings together a perfect combination, something Malini is keen to share. Learn about wildlife and nature photography with Malini and use these skills on your next nature holiday.

CITY: Basel
COURSES: Street, Night

The photographic interests of Matthias Gaberthüel are versatile and this reflects his extensive portfolio. He has been carrying around his camera for more than two decades and through his occupation as an agricultural scientist he had the opportunity to discover much of the world. Travelling always inspires him over and over and influence his work. His picture language is characterized by harmony and aesthetics, balancing art and technique. Matthias lives with his family in the Leimental near Basel.

CITY: Basel
COURSES: Beginner, Nude, Portrait

It is fascinating to hold a moment for ever. Michael Stöcklin is an award winning, self-taught photographer and Software developer. Working with people and visual art is the right balance to the strict logic and abstraction of computer science. Photography was always a part of Michael’s life, in many cases, if as visual art or technically.

At early age Michael never intended to become a photographer. But this passion grew over the years and since 10 years he runs with his wife Nithah a photo studio in Basel. Besides studio photography, mainly people, portraiture, fashion, beauty and nude, he works also on location and in different countries, like USA, Brazil, Spain, France and UK.
His main interest and passion in photography are portraiture, people, fine art and nude in studio or on location. He speaks 3 languages and can communicate in German, English and Portuguese.

CITY: Zürich
COURSES: Drone / Aerial Photography

Placido Faranda is an Award-winning and Worldwide published (National Geographic, Lonely planet, Vanity Fair, ABCnews, GQ etc.) aerial photographer whose style reflects a constant quest for new landscape colors and contrasts. Placido has been passionate about photography for over 10 years, combining DSLR and mirrorless camera technology to shoot travel and street photography.

Since 2016 he’s focused exclusively on drone photography, with a very distinctive top-down style that’s gained international attention on social media (TOP 50 aerial photographer of 2016 on Instagram’s @FROMWHEREIDRONE, an authority on aerial photography).

In 2017, his picture “Lady in Red” was a finalist at the Sony World Photography Awards (travel category), placing it in the top 10 of 105,692 images entered from 182 countries. The same picture was also included in the World Photography Organization’s Sony Awards Traveling Exhibitions in London, Milan, Paris and Berlin. Another of his pictures, “Solidified Lava vs Forest” was awarded second place at the 2017 PX3, Prix de la Photographie Paris (landscape category). “Solidified Lava vs Forest” gained further worldwide exposure after being featured on National Geographic’s homepage as the “Picture of the day” in the United States, China, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Brazil and Portugal. In October 2017 the picture was awarded second place at the IPA (International Photography Awards) and chosen by the awards’ curator for the “IPA Best of Show” exhibition in New York. In November 2017 “Solidified Lava vs Forest” was awarded 1st place at ND awards 2017 and chosen over 6849 entries from 89 countries.

In 2018, for the second year in a row, his picture “The Big Meringue” is finalist at the Sony World Photography Awards (Landscape and Nature category) placing it in the top 10 of 129,338 images entered from 183 countries. In June 2018 the same picture was awarded Winner of “San Francisco Bay International Photo Show 2018”.

CITY: Geneva
COURSES: Travel Photography

Born in Florence (ITALY) in 1981, Riccardo has been passionate about science, physics, and photography since he was a child.

His father taught him how to use an old manual camera at a young age, and since then Riccardo has never stopped applying his creativity to his pictures. Astrophotography, Macro and Panorama are the first images impressed on 35mm using analog technique, He love spend time along the Tuscan area, discovering places, enjoying the good food and slow riding with his Vespa.

“Bring the camera wherever you bring your eyes.” These few words of Riccardo’s describe his pictures displayed today and, also, his lifestyle.

CITY: Zurich
COURSES: Beginners, Intermediates, Architecture, Landscape

Sebastian Grundgeir is living and working as a trained architect and self-educated photographer in Zurich. 

Born in Hamburg he went out to study architecture in Hannover and discovered his passion for photography whilst studying. However, his profession as well as his love of nature and the alpine soon called and made him move to Switzerland.
His photographic emphasis lies in architectural photography and landscape photography. Besides the mountains and Swiss architecture, which form the main body of work, his portfolio holds projects across the entire Alpine region and beyond.

Sebastian’s photographs portrait moments in time, which he understands as a mixture of actual documentation and emotional illustration. He stresses the elements that were the incentive for the capture, accentuates colors and forms, without unnaturally distorting them. His compositions are consciously chosen, composed and most of the time carefully planned.

CITY: Zurich
COURSES: Beginners, Intermediates, Landscape, Portrait, Night Photography

My name is Severin Pomsel and I am a self-employed photographer and filmmaker in Switzerland. My interest as a photographer is based on technical landscape photography while my focus starts to shift more towards topics like environmental issues, the relation of mankind and landscape, science, economy and globalization.

My workflow is essentially patience and precision: often I return back home after hours with less than 20 images. Also the editing is an important process. If it’s not about a project containing of an incredible amount of images, I might as well spend the extra hour to put my ideas into reality.

CITY: Zurich
COURSES: Beginners, Intermediates, Landscape, Photoshop, Lightroom

After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Organizational Communication, Stefan mainly devoted himself to photography and video production. His great passion is travel photography, which offers a wonderful mix of portraits and landscapes. That’s why he travels the world with his camera again and again, always in the hunt for special photo moments.

The photographic works have been published by National Geographic Germany, ZEISS Lenspire and Sony Fotospiegel for example.

When Stefan is not traveling around the world, he shares his knowledge with the participants in photo courses and workshops, realizes photography and video projects for companies and works for Swiss Radio and Television.

Stefan sees photography as the most beautiful form of visual art and as something bigger than the photographer himself.

CITY: Bern
COURSES: Beginner

Stela Prodanovic is a person of many passions who tries to live her life to the fullest. It is all about people, sports, photography and music and she tends to immerse herself fully into everything she starts. Her longest love is piano, which she started playing at the age of 6. Her winters are dedicated to snowboarding and splitboarding and in summers she tries to split her time mostly between climbing, hiking, mountainbiking, motorbiking and scuba diving. And it wasn’t until she got infected by a travel bug that she also discovered her love for photography – and extended her language palette on 6 languages (+ Swiss German ☺)

In 2010 she was given a Nikon D90 as a present, which travelled with her to more than 50 countries over 7 continents. Having survived the heat and dust of Africa, the humidity and salt of Asia, extreme cold temperatures and wind of Antarctica and Andes, it was pushed to the maximum to get “that perfect shot”. The D90 eventually gave up the ghost and an early retirement was inevitable. Despite being equipped with an entry level camera for the initial learning years, a selection of photos were shortlisted in competitions like Travelogue National Geographic contest with others published in catalogs, websites, blogs and magazines. Developing her photography mostly while travelling, her photos are mainly focusing on landscapes, people, wildlife and sports.

What motivates her in photography is freezing the moment with her personal touch. Translating her feelings and what she sees to the photo and catching the moment the way she feels it. It’s like drawing, painting or playing music – it’s expressing yourself, and enjoying the process of submerging into the moment while taking photos. Now she wishes to share her knowledge and passion with you.

CITY: Zürich
COURSES: Beginners, Intermediate, Night, Lightroom, Photoshop

Photography has been with me all my life. My two left hands are rather denied the artisanal creativity. Thanks to the camera and my left eye I can fully enjoy it on this way.

​For me, photography is one of the most individual arts. Every person sees something with his own perception. Through my pictures I can capture my view of the world and share it with others.

Photography is also the art of stopping time for a moment. It brings us moments like this forever. Moments that we can still remember for many years to come. Just like they were back then.