Stefan Falke : 50 Künstler und Kunstliebhaber entlang der Südseite der US-mexikanischen Grenze in Baja California

Reportage photographer Stefan Falke was born in Paderborn, Germany, in 1956. After abandoning his civil engineer studies he worked as a photographer's assistant in Munich and later as a silk screen printer in Hamburg. He moved to New York in the mid 80s for a while where he photographed for German and Austrian magazines. After his return to Hamburg in the early 90s, German film studios hired him as a set photographer for movies filmed mostly in Europe and Africa. He credits his time working on movie sets with “my most important time for becoming a working photographer". Besides his assignments he started a long-term photography project about a stilt walking school in the Caribbean titled "Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad", which was exhibited at the prestigious photo festival "Visa Pour L'Image" in Perpignan/France in 2004 and published in New York as a book with the same title.

He again lives and works in New York City. For his ongoing project “LA FRONTERA: Artists along the US – Mexican Border” he photographed about 200 artists on both sides of the 2000 miles long US-Mexico border in order to put a spotlight on the vibrant cultural activities of this bi-national region which is portrayed by politicians and the international media mostly with the sole focus on violent crime and illegal immigration. This project so far resulted in 18 solo exhibitions (in Germany, the United States and Mexico) and a book, LA FRONTERA, published by Edition Faust (Germany), and numerous interviews and publications, among them the New York Times, BBC, Wired, Huffington Post …. and many others (see list below).

His most current project about the streets of New York during the pandemic resulted in the book (publ. 2021) titled Keep Going New York !!

Stefan Falke's photographs were presented by international galleries, photo festivals and museums: Visa Pour l'Image, Perpignan (France), Photoville, Brooklyn (USA), Triennale der Photographie, Hamburg (Germany), Festival Tijuana Interzona (Mexico), IMAS - International Museum for Art and Science, McAllen, Texas (USA), The Cervantes Institute, Cultural Institute of Spain, Frankfurt (Germany), Galeria 409, Brownsville, Texas, (USA), The Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, D.C. (USA), CEART Mexicali, (Mexico), Deutsches Haus at NYU, New York City (USA) ... just to name a few (see detailed list below).

He became a member of the German photo agency "laif / agentur fuer photos und reportagen" in 1999 (Laif is represented by Redux in the US).