I was born and raised in Paderborn, Germany. After abandoning my civil engineer studies I worked as a photographer's assistant in Munich and later as a silk screen printer in Hamburg. I moved to New York in 1985 where I photographed for German and Austrian magazines. Back in Germany in 1994, film studios started hiring me as a set photographer for movies mostly filmed in Europe and Africa.

Besides continuously working on assignments for magazines and film studios I started photographing a long-term project about a stilt walking school in the Caribbean titled "Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad", which was exhibited at the international photo journalism festival Visa Pour L'Image in 2004 in Perpignan/France and published as a book in New York the same year (by: Pointed Leaf Press). I became a member of the prestigious German photo agency laif / agentur fuer photos und reportagen in 1999. My work is distributed by laif and their world wide partner agencies like Redux Pictures in New York.

For my current long term project LA FRONTERA: Artists along the US Mexican Border I am planning to travel along the entire 2000 miles long US-Mexican border to photograph artists and other creative people in order to show the vibrant cultural side of a region which is portrayed by the international media mostly with the sole focus on violent crime.

I again live and work in Brooklyn, New York, since 2002. I am a member of AMSP (American Society of Media Photographers) and the Foreign Press Center in New York. Please visit my website: www.stefanfalke.com