ON ASSIGNMENT

Sixty metres up the mast of a windjammer, in a heavy Atlantic swell, the camera bag slips open — and the most important lens falls to the deck far below. Now the picture has to be made anyway. That is the job.
For five decades Gert Wagner photographed for the great magazines and brands — GEO, STERN, Sports Magazine, Lufthansa, Ford, BMW, Shell. The assignments sent him across oceans and deserts, into the Brazilian jungle and above the Arctic ice — high in the rigging of sailing ships, leaning from the open door of a plane over a desert canyon. Conditions no one could plan for, surprises that had to be met in seconds — and every time, a strong picture had to come home.
ON ASSIGNMENT is the true story of what happens before a photograph exists: the improvisation, the sudden turns, and the split-second solutions no one sees in the finished frame. Each chapter is a story from a real commission — what was wanted, what no one saw coming, and how it was resolved. And each closes with the craft behind it: light, timing, mobility, and the art of staying ready for anything.
Part adventure, part masterclass — by the photographer who also invented the flexible autofocus every camera uses today, the patent acquired by Canon in 1995.
For anyone who has ever wondered how a photograph really comes about — told as a story, not a lesson.