Introducing István Vizner

From the desk of Frank Barnett

Having the advantage of unique strengths as a graphic designer, post-production artist, and photographer, István Vizner's three-pronged approach has landed him at the top of his game. István’s creations inhabit a world of visual fantasies made possible by a brilliantly vivid imagination and the artist’s early grounding in illustration and pre-digital collage. For Vizner, who was influenced by the early twentieth-century Bauhaus and Russian Constructivist movements, the line between fine art photography and commercial illustration has become blurred.

In a tradition unique to Europeans, István’s career began with a five-year apprenticeship in graphic design, leading to a position as an art director in Zürich. In 1989, after a year in North America, he returned to Switzerland and became a freelance art director, establishing his graphic design studio and working on a Mac for the first time. Already proficient in the medium of photo collage, he quickly became part of the first digital revolution in the visual industry.

In the mid-nineties, he launched Scheffold-Vizner Photographers with his photographer friend, Fabian. The new partners immediately joined the ranks of high-end European photographers, fusing their three creative skills into a very strong design group with big-name clients. This was the beginning of István’s third apprenticeship and new passion—photography, working in the partners' own full-service studio, having big and mid-size cameras, a lab, a drum scanner, and in-house post-production capabilities at his disposal. And at the outset of the millennium, István went through the second digital revolution, replacing most of his analog cameras or outfitting them with digital backs. 

In 2012, desiring to maintain his uniquely fresh approach to creativity and evolving skills as an artist, István sought a radical change in his personal and professional lives and relocated from the shores of Lake Zürich to the American Southwest that had made such an impression on him two decades earlier. Although now settled in the United States, István continues to work with clients in Europe. Now a citizen of the world, a self-described “Internationalist,” he travels wherever his shooting assignments take him.