Gerhard Launer

Gerhard Launer (2007)

Gerhard Launer (born 8 January 1949 in Werneck) is one of the best known aerial photographers in Germany.

Life

Launer was born in 1949 in Werneck. From early on he received violin lessons and was invited at the age of nine by the world renowned violin soloist and teacher Tibor Varga to spend three months with him at his home in Switzerland. At the age of fourteen he enrolled at the Conservatory Wuerzburg to study violin. An accident forced him to give up on his goal to become a musician.

While working for his degree in Graphic Design, he obtained his private pilot license. Later he added the professional pilot license and so combined his two interests, photography and flying and became a professional Aerial Photographer.

His passion is to capture nature’s art in features and structures that are discernible only from the air and to present these in his photos to the public in books and calendars. In 1996 he won first and second prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair, awarded by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, with his calendars Structures and Wind, Water, Waves. In 2003 Gerhard Launer was featured in the television show Galileo on ProSieben to explain how aerial photography is done. In the spring of 2004 the Knesebeck Publishing House released his first book titled Germany from Above – Day by Day. More books were published. In May 2005 the magazine Stern featured Gerhard Launer with his photo series Beautiful Germany.

Gerhard Launer WFL-GmbH

Gerhard Launer WFL-GmbH, which specializes in aerial photography (axonometric projection), is based in Rottendorf near Wuerzburg. Gerhard Launer with his two airplanes and special aerial photography cameras (analog: Lindhof-Aerotechnica, film format 4x5 inch; Hasselblad H2D, resolution 39 Mio Pixel) took photos of nearly all the towns, cities, villages, landscapes and sites of interest in Germany. In addition he has in his archives aerial photos from many countries, including the USA. He employs digital processing and prepares his photos in his own laboratory.

Works

Books

Calendars

Media

External links