Born in Regensburg in 1940, Hierl first studied Teaching in Regensburg and Munich before establishing an AV media publishing company for the education sector. He has been involved in photography since the age of 14, with his main interest lying in life photography. His role models were photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Marc Riboud, whose work he discovered in the magazine Leica Fotografie. He received several Jugend fotografiert awards at Photokina in Cologne. As in the past, people are at the heart of his work; though today they are primarily artistic personalities. He works mainly with Leica cameras and develops his pictures in his own laboratory.
