Encounters

"Considering the current situation and the unbelievable images coming out of Ukraine, every day, it isn't easy for me to look back on what now appears to have been a carefree time, when my Leica and I were able to wander the streets of Berlin for a few weeks.

Even though my encounters with people I photographed were relatively short, it is the people, the conversations and the situations of those encounters that remain in my mind, alongside the resulting photographs. It turned out that most of the people I agreed to meet and photograph didn't actually come from the place where we took the pictures; rather – just like myself – they had moved there, or were travelling through.

Ester and her boyfriend had just come from Ukraine to Berlin for a couple of weeks, a few days before we had arranged to meet in Friedrichshain to take pictures. It was sunny and warm, a late autumn Sunday in October, 2020. We strolled together along the Frankfurter Allee, looking for the appropriate backdrop. As so often happens, after the initial “nice to meet you”, we quickly began to talk about the reasons and dreams that lead a person to a city – in this case Berlin.

I remember how we discussed modelling, music making and, of course, photography; and how they told me about their homeland, and spending week-ends out is the beauty of nature; and how they already missed it. These were things that, at the time, felt so very normal and natural that you barely gave them any thought."