However, he not only photographed the local “celebrities”, the Italian actress Sophia Loren, Princess Grace of Monaco, Bruno Kreisky and many others were also photographed by the Braunau photographer.
Wolfgang Baier learned the photographer’s craft from scratch. He began an apprenticeship as a photographer in 1959 and worked for the photographer Gerner in Braunau until 1966. The deceased was known throughout the district, among other things, because of his work at the Neue Warte am Inn and as a long-standing press photographer for the Braunauer Stadtnachrichten. “Having been able to accompany Wolfgang Baier as editor-in-chief for several decades, I know the photographic treasures that are stored in his archive. It would therefore also be in his interests if these contemporary documents could be made accessible to the public in a city archive,” says his long-time director Companion Reinhold Klika.
The man from Braunau was an animal lover, his cats led a “princely life” in their home and garden. His specialties were above all many night operations together with the fire brigade, ambulance and the police. Once the saying “Faster than the fire brigade” was particularly true for him. In a major fire in Altheim at the Wiesner-Hager company, he was actually faster than the fire brigade, but then ran off the road shortly before Altheim and ended up with his car in the meadow instead of in the major fire.
Wolfgang Baier was also an extremely sociable person and a welcome guest at regulars’ tables in some coffee houses and wine bars. Wolfgang Baier enjoyed his retirement in Greece, in southern Styria and in his beloved garden in St. Peter, where he turned to “stress-free photography”, nurturing nature and capturing all its variations on his memory cards. In his own four walls, in front of four monitors and just as many computers, he informed himself daily about what was happening around the world, before finally withdrawing back to his “small world” and his garden. To the last, the 77-year-old fought bravely against his severe cancer. The urn burial will take place this Friday, March 18, at 2 p.m. in Braunau.
Source: Nachrichten
