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About

Kia ora, welcome to Bavariant.

It's taken me 40 years of taking photographs to get to this point: where in my late 50s I've finally given myself permission to call myself, drum roll please... "a photographer".

There are various reasons behind why that's been such a mission, some of which I address in The Unmaking, my podcast where I talk to others about the creative practice and their own processes and pivots. But it was an old friend randomly saying "you should sell some of your photos" that was the analogue external validation I needed to finally muster my courage, and start calling it by name - thanks Bron🫶.

My name's John Bache, I'm co-founder of Naked & Curious, and I live in Wānaka, Aotearoa New Zealand.

The name Bavariant has a history. In 2009, after seven years of living in Munich, I asked a graffiti artist a question under a bridge, which surprisingly lead to me founding a streetwear label to celebrate the underground artists, musicians, and free spirits doing quietly subversive creative work in the most conservative city and state in Germany.

Anyone can be creative in Berlin, but Munich?

Bavaria is deeply religious, tightly policed at every level of society, and yet here were people making risking the wrath of the Bavarian legal system to make incredible public art. They deserved to be seen. The back of my business card read:

Bavariant n. 1. Bavarian-based artist, musician, or free spirit leading with their heart, thinking outside the square, and showing the courage to zag when everyone else is zigging. 2 Bavarian-based streetwear label celebrating and actively supporting said individuals as they make the world a more interesting place.

The tagline was Bewegt Horizonte. Move Horizons.

Almost twenty years later, back home on the other side of the world, having been shaped by Bavaria in ways I'm still figuring out, I find I'm not quite Kiwi, not quite Bavarian. Something in between. A Bavariant.

The mission hasn't changed: celebrating creative people and their work. But the location has. Wānaka, not Munich. And in 2026, for the first time, I'm also counting myself a member of that creative cadre, and reclaiming Bavariant for myself.

My photographic explorations to date have been mainly landscape and light driven, and I get particularly excited on days when there's visible transformation between states happening - the mist burning off in the sun, a storm on its way or receding, or the light just about to come or go. All of it shot in available light, exactly as the camera and I saw it.

But life's all about connecting with people, and I have a strong sense that portraiture is where the future of my photography lies.

I'm bringing everything I've learned - forty years of watching light and transition, years of interviewing people and breaking through to conversational depth quickly - to the practice of photographing strangers I encounter on Wānaka's trails, and shooting The Unmaking guests in my mobile studio Flø, a converted horse float.

I think the most interesting portraits are to be discovered in those moments after the right question's landed, when only nervous system and evolutionary psychology are at the controls. That's what I'm after.

Give The Unmaking a listen wherever you get your podcasts, follow my portraiture progress on Instagram, and my contact details are below for any enquiries about prints, portraits, or projects.

Bewegt Horizonte