Christian Holzknecht was born and raised surrounded by the wonderful mountains in the Austrian Alps. He discovered his passion for photography as an 8 years old boy. He would fight with his older brothers to get to be the one to change the film in their father’s old roll camera. 

He started his professional career as a press photographer in Europe and worked for local magazines in Austria and Germany. 1993 he joined the United Nations and spent seven years in the middle east as a photographer. During this period, he used his free time to develop a style using black and white imagery. He was very inspired by Helmut Newton and shot images of mostly female nudes.

His first exhibition was political and provocative, portraying nude photos of lesbian women in the Turkish Islamic part of Cyprus. As it wasn’t permitted and/or approved by the United Nations, Holzknecht was suspended from his contract. At this time, it became an opportunity for him to start his career as a professional photographer.

Holzknecht worked for German Playboy Magazine and many others similar. In 2002 he published his first book “TWO WOMEN” and won the “BEST BOOK AWARD” in the US.
For many years he produced photo calendars and created advertising campaigns.

During his years behind the camera, he felt that every human being had a unique vibration. The more he could sense it, the better he could lead the person to create the ideal picture. His awareness of this challenged him to do a second study that led him to receive a degree as an NLP communication trainer.

He now lives in Los Angeles and Vienna/Austria, working as a people photographer. He continually challenges himself to be intuitive to people’s needs as photographer and allows them to inspire his work.  In addition, he serves as a mentor to those he photographs.
He has dedicated himself to the topic of SELF LOVE as a means to bring more LOVE, PEACE and AWARENESS to the world. He teaches children in schools about “inner beauty” and holds speeches throughout Austria and Germany promoting this topic.

His new book “PERFECT” is about people with marks of life and disabilities, and how they live the perfect vision of themselves. It will be his first photo book that has written commentary about “feeling the beauty within”. It is a book about how environmental conditioning, social media, cultural imprints, motivation, and happiness, influence the life of every human being.


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