Marianne Strobl did not take “snapshots”: whether on construction sites, in hotel kitchens, artists’ studios, or in her own living room, the people in front of her camera were well aware they were being photographed. With extraordinary skill, she managed to get even larger groups of people to hold still, whether they were prisoners of war recruited for construction work or a research team in an ice cave.

Especially remarkable is her depiction of various professions in their place of work – in poses that were clearly influenced by the models’ own ideas. A notable example is an album that the staff of the Hotel Meissl & Schaden created to celebrate head waiter Johann Kolbinger’s twenty-fifth year working at the hotel, with the employees staged at their respective workplaces, from the wine cellar up to the guest rooms.