Who I am?

David Beraha, MA, Msc

Hello!

My name is David Beraha and I was born in Vienna in 1987. Here I grew up in an intellectual household. I've always been interested in different ways of life and "the other" and that is why after graduating, I decided to study the subject Social and Cultural Anthropology. I graduated with honors and received the Wiener Rupert-Riedl-Preis.

Since I've always been interested in animals, I started studying Human-Animal Interactions at the Messerli Institute of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, which I was also able to complete with good results shortly afterwards.

I have been working in the IT sector for a number of years and as a result also have achieved an ITIL 4 certificate.

As a teenager I developed a fascination with Music and playing the drums. Together with my brother, Manuel Beraha, who started playing bass and guitar back then, we improvised for several hours every day for years. During this time we founded a band together with our closest friend Fabian Wessely called Mental Confusion. Our debut album The Curse of Mental Confusion was recorded and mastered at the Soundborn Studio. It was here as well where the album of our band Heartmind with the title Rite of Passage was produced.

I had access to a computer from a young age, which was not usual at the time. As a teenager, I was able to get to grips with various operating systems, even if this served mainly for entertainment at the time. What began as extended evenings of gaming sessions with my brother and friends soon developed into a passion for designing games. Here I specialized in graphic and animation design, as well as general game design and writing of characters, stories and creating puzzles. From this developed the independent game company called Mental Games, having since designed, among other games, a point & click adventure called The Adventures of Mental Confusion Jam One.

Since my father ran a photo lab for as long as I can remember, it was probably only a matter of time before I became interested in this art form as well. Although that passion came rather late — long after the business had to close its doors to analog photo development — the fascination with Photography eventually caught up with me completely. I shoot both analog and digital photography. What draws me most to analog photography is the challenge and the deliberate approach to every single frame. It makes me think more carefully about when to press the shutter and what I actually want to capture, which leads me to photograph more consciously and with greater intention. Digital photography, on the other hand, really shines through its technical capabilities: focus stacking in macro photography, image stabilization for handheld long exposures, or improved low-light performance are just a few examples.