Happiness is scattered along the path—you only need to notice it, recognize its worth, and make it your own. How I developed my curiosity about the world and my passion for photography.
Openness as the key to accessing the world.
I have been fortunate in my life to see and experience a great deal, and I realized early on that my openness was one of the keys to this. Even as a young person, I had the ability to look around the world without fear or reservations. Was it because I grew up in a youth hostel? Or was it because my parents took me on trips during the winter when our hostel was closed? It's hard to say for sure.
Perhaps my passion for adventure books, which I devoured as a child, also contributed to this. Or the intensity with which I lived through my hippie phase. I wore my hair long, painted my room black, became a DJ, and experimented with drugs and transcendental meditation. The search for enlightenment even led me to travel alone by hitchhiking, trains, and buses across the country to India. I didn't find the insight I was looking for there, but I did find something else: that I didn't want to miss out on traveling anymore.
At the time, I dreamed of becoming a journalist or an artist and had no idea that I would end up building a company instead. I got into the popcorn business, became a husband, a father, and a food scout, and never stopped traveling.
On the contrary, as soon as I started, I wanted more—I wanted to meet new people and cultures and understand a little bit about how the world around me works. My travels became even more intense when I finally discovered my passion for photography. Capturing special moments with my camera and immortalizing them became a gift and also an incentive that I pursued from then on. Whether as a food scout or photographer, I eventually realized that happiness is to be found on the street. You just have to look closely, recognize it, and pick it up. Photography has helped me do that. I now have an archive of more than 70,000 images full of impressions from all over the world. I always thought: someday I'll do something with them so that these experiences aren't lost.
Now the time has come.
Helmut Haase
Photography & Stories
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© Helmut Haase 1975 – 2025