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Photographer Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek shows the secret life of alpacas
08.01.2019
“Better Living with Alpacas” by Austrian photographer Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek is the calendar you never knew you needed. With his new project Daniel has unearthed the secret to eternal happiness. It isn’t money, fame or love — it’s alpacas.
Gebhart de Koekkoek’s latest endeavor is a calendar featuring a collection of well-groomed domesticated alpacas in unlikely architectural spaces. The animals frequent decadent interiors that wouldn’t look out of place in a Wes Anderson film.
Working on the calendar, Daniel shot four-legged models in sumptuously decorated locations, including hotel suites, rooftop bars, or smoking rooms by architects such as Adolf Loos or Mies van der Rohe.
This isn’t Daniel’s first time photographing animals — you may remember his “Jumping Cats series” from a while back — but working with alpacas was a totally different experience. He implies that he allowed the alpacas to choose their own settings in which to be photographed, noting how “the only thing they have in common is their fine taste for interior design and architecture,” he explains to „It’s Nice That“. “They are real masters and I love all the places they picked to get their pictures taken.”
Landing on alpacas as his next subject was actually quite a surprise for the photographer, admitting that following the jumping cats of 2018 “it was done for me with animals and calendars,” Daniel told „It’s Nice That“. However, while driving out of his home city of Vienna earlier this year, Daniel met alpacas for the very first time. He was still tense from daily work but when he looked at their smiling faces, he could not help smiling in return.
So, the decision to transform that power into a calendar to share it with others was made, with the hope that it makes people’s life „a little happier every day.”
The “Better Living with Alpacas” is currently sold out. For more information, visit Daniel’s website.
The Innsbruck-born photographer is a trained computer scientist. In 2008 he made a life-changing decision after an internship at the photo agency Magnum in New York and became a professional photographer. Today he photographs for internationally renowned magazines such as “Monocle”, “Zeit Magazin” or “Vanity Fair”.