In early 2020, Manila resident and documentary photographer, Gunther Deichman, decided it was time to move from his house to something smaller and different. He chose an apartment on the 10th floor of a high-rise in downtown Manila. His favorite feature One feature is the balcony which afforded him views of the skyline, and unique top-down perspective of the busy streets. Little did he know that the balcony would become a major influence on his photographic style.

Just a few weeks after moving into his new home, COVID struck the Philippines. The country reacted with one of the strictest lockdowns in the world forcing Gunther to remain in his apartment for over a year.

Accustomed to traveling the world on documentary assignments Gunther felt confined by the strict lockdown rules. As an outlet he began photographing the outside world from the only place available to him, his balcony.

The constraints of working from a small space with limited perspectives forced Gunther to abandon his comfort zone to capture his reduced world in new ways. Accustomed to photographing people of different cultures up close Gunther was forced now began to photograph the city scape and street life with multiple focal lengths, including a 800mm telephoto.

He continued to photograph people, but from an entirely different perspective, which often featured the tops of heads or through windows from great distances. He began to search for shapes created by everyday objects seen from above.

During the height of the pandemic Gunther made over 18,000 images from the confines of his balcony which resulted in his new self-published book Views from my Balcony.

The 180 page large format book covers a wide variety of photographic subjects such as monsoonal storms, dramatic cloud formation, city scapes, street life and much more captured from the confined space of his balcony.

• Gunther’s Website
• Views from my Balcony Book
• Gunther’s Instagram