Ernst Meyer

Ernst Meyer (junior) was born in Zürich and grew up with his parents and 3 siblings in the old city of Arbon in Canton of St. Gallen. His parents ran a bakery and he did an apprenticeship pastry maker in his parents business. During his military service he met another recruit who took photographs. That grabbed his attention. So after his military service, he went and bought his first Photo camera. In the beginning, he wasn't satisfied with the proportions of light and shadows, until a friend, who worked in an Art book publishing company, told him, that he even managed that very well. In the seventies he worked then as Set Photographer and Camera Assistant for Elite Film (ch) under the Film Producer Erwin C. Dietrich and during 25 years as Production Assistant at the side of Producer Peter Spoerri for a variety of Films, like "Children of the open road", some episodes of "Tatort" (the longest running German TV-Show), Oscar winning Swiss Movie "Journey of Hope" and Oscar nominated Swiss Film "Das Boot ist voll". In many films he was uncredited, since he often just had all kinds of temporary jobs, as organizing props, making props for the Set or organizing the catering. Besides that he developed his own techniques in hand coloring sepia developed Photograph prints of nature and building motives, as well as specialized in Art Photography of nude models. As in 1989 the Film Production Company had to cut down costs, Producer Peter Spoerri and therefore his own Production Assistant employment contract was canceled. Two years later he got diabetes and had to stop working in a bakery making pastry, which he had done on the weekends for some years. From 1994-1997 he worked as Unit Production Manager for the best and longest running Swiss Comedy TV Show "Fascht e Familie" (Almost a Family, 1994-1999) once a week, when the Episodes were recorded. He then studied Video production and digital photography in Zurich, Essen & Munich in Germany and got some jobs as Freelance cameraman for local TV Stations for a while, but since 2005 he mainly works as Freelance digital Photographer.