Olaf Heine is a German photographer and film director, born in Hanover in 1968. He trained in photography and communication design at the Lette Verein in Berlin, and his first assignments, album covers for German and international musicians, came before he had finished his training.
His international breakthrough came after he moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s. He is known for carefully staged portraits of musicians, actors and athletes, and for his architecture and landscape photographs. He has also worked for brands such as Mercedes, Coca-Cola and Adidas.
His books include Leaving the Comfort Zone (Hatje Cantz, 2008), I Love You But I’ve Chosen Rock (Hatje Cantz, 2011), Brazil (teNeues, 2014, new edition 2024), Rwandan Daughters (Hatje Cantz, 2019), Human Conditions (Prestel, 2022) and Hawaii (teNeues, 2024). In Brazil he photographed the country’s architecture, including the buildings of Oscar Niemeyer, together with its landscapes and people. Hawaii, made over many years, looks past the usual tourist view of the islands.
He is represented by Camera Work in Berlin, and his work has also been shown at the Museum Folkwang in Essen and at Noorderlicht in Groningen. He lives and works between Berlin and Los Angeles.
