Michael Knopf

I became a new member of Lifthill.net as I was more and more able to combine two of my hobbies: Amusement parks and photography. My first encounter with today's team of Lifthill.net had already taken place in 2001 - back then, one of them ate my food during an event at Holiday Park ;-)

My interest in amusement parks was there all the time. It wasn't that strong however as to consider myself as a fan. Back then I went one or two times a year to Tripsdrill together with my grandparents what has been a huge event for a small boy like me. We also visited the then brand-new theme park Mirapolis in France two times which unfortunately closed soon afterwards again. During the time when a new Disneyland was being planned and built in Europe I followed the construction process and slowly became interested in learning more about the artificial worlds.

In the middle of the 90's the Parc Asterix and Europa-Park became new destinations and I began to hear about other crazy fellows who are more intensively into roller coasters and amusement parks as well. After I joined the first German coaster fan club thanks to a friend I met more and more friendly people during the club events. Many discussions over the internet strengthened this even more… Annual passes for the Disneyland Paris followed soon after and with every new visit I discovered more details and views that just remain overlooked and undiscovered during a one or two day visit. It is so much fun to just visit a park very relaxed and watch all the people instead of running from one attraction to the next.

As I became more and more interested again in my hobby photography from past times (everything still manually with exposure meter, without autofocus or shutter-priority) and digital single-lens reflex cameras became affordable in the meantime with so much more possibilities compared to a compact digital camera, I made countless photos - not only from amusement parks - and the fun increased with every photo. Soon I delivered photos to Lifthill.net, the contact got closer and closer and we developed a good friendship which will hopefully last for a long time.