Martin Essl is an Austrian photographer based in Paris. He studied photography at the University of Arts in Linz and at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d'Art in Paris. He works on long-term photographic essays, mostly in book form and in color.
His first book, Le Château Rouge No. 1, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2015. Le bateau ivre (Kehrer Verlag, 2024) is a photographic diary of Paris made between 2019 and 2023. The title refers to the poem by Arthur Rimbaud. The book is structured like a play in five acts and has 149 color photographs on 240 pages.
Essl has been represented by Galerie Esther Woerdehoff in Paris since 2016. In 2023 the Austrian Federal Collection of Photography at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg acquired his work. In 2026 he founded a collective for new photographic work made in Paris.
