Director & Photographer Daniel Sannwald On Creating Digital Dreamscapes

Few image-makers traverse the boundary between high-tech fantasy and emotional realism quite like Daniel Sannwald. The German-born photographer and director has carved out a singular aesthetic defined by high-gloss surrealism, digital manipulation, and a visceral intimacy, shaped early by the rediscovery of his late father’s archived artwork. A graduate of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Sannwald has built an expansive visual universe that spans avant-garde editorials for Dazed, i-D, and Pop Magazine, Grammy-winning album imagery for Rosalía, and era-defining collaborations with cultural disruptors like Arca, Travis Scott, and Beyoncé. For the artist unafraid to warp perception and redefine what can happen to an image, risk is more than a necessity—it’s the reward. In his latest film shot for Models.com, featuring a cast of visionary talents including Arca, Kali Uchis, Eartheater, Hung La of Lu’u Dan, Isamaya Ffrench, and Pat Boguslawski, Sannwald’s journey plays out as a hallucinatory meditation on transformation, intimacy, and influence. Speaking from his current home base in Mexico, he reflects with Models.com on finding his voice, forging friendships through collaboration, and the time he pitched crashing a magazine’s homepage with a digital virus—all in the name of art.