Noah and Michèle embracing at the center of the enormous dark Mahalla hall.

BERLIN, GERMANY52°30'31"N 13°26'24"E · AUGUST · LOVERS SESSION

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

The room was enormous. They kept finding each other in it.

Michèle asked Noah what they were reading. Noah answered, stayed for a little while, and then left without exchanging names or numbers. They now call this gay panic, which is a frankly shit system for seeing someone again.

Michèle tried to find Noah on Instagram and failed. A few days later, Noah followed her and liked some photographs. She messaged immediately. That part worked better.

I already knew Michèle. We met at a workshop I taught in the Azores in 2017. Eight years later, she asked me to photograph her and Noah in Berlin. Both of them make photographs themselves, so nobody needed me to pretend a camera is neutral. It changes a room simply by being there. The interesting part is what people decide they can still show you.

The word PAIN painted high across the brick wall inside Mahalla in Berlin.
The empty industrial hall at Mahalla with the PAIN lettering above the far wall.
Close portrait of Noah looking into the camera in warm window light.
Noah in profile with the Mahalla hall softly visible behind them.
A hand holding a book filled with colorful page markers.
Noah lying on the concrete floor as a hard shaft of sunlight crosses their face.
Noah and Michèle turning together on a red carpet, their bodies blurred by movement.
Noah and Michèle lying face to face on the red carpet inside the industrial hall.
Close view of Noah's gold necklace spelling They over a black shirt.
Noah and Michèle standing far apart inside the vast Mahalla hall.
Michèle in the foreground and Noah farther away inside a pool of sunlight.
Noah and Michèle reaching toward each other with their fingertips nearly touching.
Noah and Michèle facing each other and holding hands in the industrial hall.
Noah and Michèle embracing at the center of the enormous dark Mahalla hall.
Michèle gently touching Noah's face in warm light.
Noah laughing while Michèle holds them from behind.
Michèle's hands resting on Noah's black shirt, with rings and blue nails visible.
Noah and Michèle's faces close together in side profile.
Noah and Michèle lying on the red carpet and looking directly at each other.
Noah resting with their head in Michèle's lap inside the dim industrial hall.
Abstract reflection of Mahalla's glass roof in small mirrored tiles.
Noah and Michèle's ringed hands layered together on a mirrored surface.
White bed sheets crossed by a bright strip of window light.
A rainbow Pride fan displayed on a shelf in Noah and Michèle's Berlin room.
Noah and Michèle lying together beneath white sheets on a bright bed.
Noah and Michèle laughing face to face in the white bed.
Noah and Michèle embracing in a narrow patch of dark amber light.
Michèle leaning over Noah as angled window light shapes their faces and bodies.
Noah lying alone with their face illuminated against a dark bed.
Wide view of Michèle sitting above Noah on a bed beside a large window.
Vertical portrait of Noah lying upside down in the frame while Michèle holds their hands.
Their hands joined over Noah's chest beside a small peace-symbol tattoo.
Noah lying on the bed and looking openly up toward the camera.
Noah smiling up at Michèle from the bed.
Michèle standing over the bed and photographing Noah with an instant camera.Close portrait of Noah looking toward Michèle in soft window light.
Michèle sitting beside Noah as they relax together on the rumpled bed.

One question in a book café. Then no name. No number. Nothing useful whatsoever.

A bookshop skylight framing blue sky and clouds above Berlin.
A table covered with books about queer culture, feminism and art.
Noah and Michèle standing close together and reading the same book.
Michèle's camera hanging at her side as Noah rests a hand at her waist.
Coffee, food and a book arranged on a small café table.
Noah and Michèle sharing coffee and food at a Berlin café table.

PAIN was already written across the wall. A useful accident, maybe. I asked Noah whether the word also belonged to something in their life: the pain around surgery, but also what came before it, the kind that doesn't leave a visible mark. Was I reading too much into it? Noah said no. So we made the photographs.

The large PAIN graffiti stretching across a Berlin building facade.
Noah standing alone beside the PAIN graffiti on a Berlin street.
Noah and Michèle holding hands on the pavement beneath the graffiti wall.
Noah and Michèle facing each other beneath the large PAIN lettering.
Noah's They necklace framed between Noah and Michèle's bodies as they embrace.
Michèle raising her camera to photograph the Berlin facade.
Noah and Michèle walking away hand in hand along the graffiti wall.
Close view of Noah and Michèle's joined hands as they run along the street.
A Berlin apartment facade in warm late-afternoon light.
Michèle smiling while carrying stacked pizza boxes near the Landwehrkanal.
Michèle photographing in a hard strip of low evening sunlight.
Noah and Michèle sitting together and eating pizza beside the Landwehrkanal.
Hands opening a pizza box beside the canal.
The low sun reflecting across the Landwehrkanal at the end of the day.

I kept coming back to something that should be painfully obvious: people love people.

Michèle does not love an easier version of Noah, edited down to whatever the world finds convenient. She loves Noah. Gender identity matters because it is part of how a person lives, moves and is seen. It is not the outer edge of what another person can love.

Maybe I understood that before. I understood it differently after watching the two of them.

Then, at the canal, I managed to break a piece off a tooth. Shortly afterward I dropped my iPhone into the water. Same stretch of evening. No idea how.

Noah and Michèle had pizza. I had a dental problem and no phone.

Honestly, that was probably enough meaning for one day.

Noah and Michèle's Lovers Session moved through places that already belonged to their annual Berlin ritual: Mahalla's industrial hall, a private room, shelves of books, the streets around the PAIN wall and pizza beside the Landwehrkanal. The photographs move between documentary attention and deliberately constructed portraits, using hard light, distance and physical closeness without pretending the camera was absent. For couples looking for cinematic couple photography in Berlin, this story shows what becomes possible when there is enough time to move beyond the obvious photographs.

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