Lorelai and Steffen kiss in falling snow before a red neon window on the Reeperbahn.

HAMBURG, ST. PAULI, GERMANY53.5497° N, 9.9637° E · FEBRUARY · LOVERS SESSION

TOTAL OPPOSITES, APPARENTLY

They changed each other without asking the other person to become someone else.

Lorelai and Steffen both ended relationships in the same month and were looking for themselves rather than for somebody new. They matched on Tinder because a friend dared Lorelai to set her age filter below twenty-nine. Their first date ended on the floor of a book-exchange booth in Tempelhofer Feld. It was dark, it was raining and passing strangers smiled at them through the glass. Both had warned the other not to get attached.

Apparently, they were complete opposites. Lorelai had pink hair and ideas that kept disturbing Steffen's routines. He was vegan, left-wing and lived with a communal kitchen. Nearly six years later, he travels and listens to techno. She is about sixty percent vegan and knows the lawyers from the NSU trial. They have changed each other without asking the other person to become someone else.

Lorelai is a photographer herself. She had photographed Steffen thousands of times, but there were almost no photographs of the two of them together. For a long time, body image had made being in front of a camera difficult for her. This session was not about pretending that difficulty had never existed. It was about making proof that she had been here, and that they had been here together.

Lorelai and Steffen sit in silhouette beside a bright hotel window in Hamburg.
Close view of Lorelai's and Steffen's hands resting together in the hotel room.
Lorelai and Steffen sit close together in front of the hotel window.
Steffen's hands rest over Lorelai's hands and dotted tights.
Lorelai laughs while sitting with Steffen on the hotel bed.
Steffen kisses Lorelai's forehead as she leans into him.
Lorelai curls into Steffen's shoulder on the hotel bed.
Lorelai laughs beside Steffen on an unmade hotel bed, seen from above.
Steffen holds Lorelai's hand while they lie facing each other on the bed.
Steffen leans down to kiss Lorelai on the hotel bed.
Lorelai and Steffen laugh together while lying on the bed near the window.
Lorelai rests her head on Steffen as both lie quietly on white bedding.
Lorelai and Steffen kiss inside a mirrored hotel lift in black and white.

Lorelai and I had written to each other on Instagram for years. She had followed my work for a long time, but this was the first time we met in person. Her parents had booked the hotel for Lorelai and Steffen because it stood directly opposite the Harry Potter theatre. It was not a hotel they had chosen for themselves. It simply became the place where we began.

We talked for ages before making many photographs. They were still nervous, and the hotel part took longer than expected. Once we left the room, that slowly changed. We walked from HafenCity towards Baumwall and Landungsbrücken, got on the U-Bahn and continued through St. Pauli towards the Reeperbahn. Somewhere along that route, the session stopped feeling like something they had to do.

Lorelai and Steffen walk away together across a steel bridge in HafenCity.
Lorelai's and Steffen's hands meet between their dark winter coats.
Lorelai and Steffen kiss beside the harbour on a cold winter afternoon.
Lorelai leans her forehead against Steffen beside the harbour.
Lorelai smiles softly while standing face to face with Steffen near the water.
Lorelai and Steffen laugh together against the industrial harbour setting.
Rear view of Lorelai and Steffen walking side by side across the wooden bridge.Lorelai and Steffen walk through the covered bridge toward the station.
Detail of Lorelai's and Steffen's boots climbing worn station steps.
Lorelai and Steffen sit close together inside Baumwall station.
Lorelai and Steffen appear small beneath the wide roof of Baumwall station.
Lorelai and Steffen walk hand in hand along the station platform.
Lorelai and Steffen stand together inside a busy Hamburg U-Bahn carriage.
Soft reflection of Lorelai and Steffen beside a U-Bahn window.
Steffen holds Lorelai closely inside the U-Bahn, both with closed eyes.
Lorelai touches Steffen's face on the tiled platform at St. Pauli station.
Lorelai and Steffen stand together beside a dark pillar at St. Pauli station.
Lorelai and Steffen laugh together on the U-Bahn platform.
Lorelai wraps her arms around Steffen on the station platform.
Lorelai and Steffen walk beside a red and silver Hamburg U-Bahn train.
Close view of Lorelai and Steffen holding hands while climbing station stairs.Lorelai and Steffen climb a station staircase beside their mirrored reflection.
Snowy Hamburg streets and traffic lights at blue hour near St. Pauli.

There was no snow when we got on the train at Landungsbrücken. When we came back up in St. Pauli, it was snowing like hell.

Lorelai and Steffen emerge into heavy snow outside St. Pauli station.
Lorelai and Steffen kiss in falling snow before a red neon window on the Reeperbahn.
Neon light colours Lorelai's face blue and red as snow falls around her.
Lorelai and Steffen lean close together in red neon light and falling snow.
Lorelai and Steffen embrace in front of the neon window during the snowstorm.
Lorelai's and Steffen's hands reach toward each other against red neon lettering.
Dark silhouettes of Lorelai and Steffen kissing against red neon light.
Lorelai and Steffen stand together in a doorway with a distant red neon sign.
Lorelai and Steffen look at each other in falling snow on St. Pauli, in black and white.
Lorelai rests against Steffen in the snow, both smiling in black and white.
Lorelai and Steffen embrace outside a St. Pauli station entrance at night.
Lorelai and Steffen kiss beside a lit doorway on the Reeperbahn, in black and white.
Close black-and-white view of Lorelai's hand holding Steffen's dark coat.
Lorelai smiles close to Steffen as snow settles on their coats.
Lorelai and Steffen kiss beneath the illuminated North Hotel sign.
Lorelai shelters against Steffen in a quiet nighttime embrace.
Overlapping footprints mark fresh snow on a Hamburg pavement.

At the red neon window, the wind was brutal. Lorelai and Steffen were freezing and we had to work fast. There was no time left to worry about the camera, a pose or what any of this might look like.

Those photographs became my favourites from the session. Not despite the weather, but because the cold, the snow and the wind intensified everything that had already become visible between them. We stopped when they were too frozen to continue.

Lorelai and Steffen's couple photoshoot in Hamburg moves from a hotel in HafenCity through Baumwall and Landungsbrücken to St. Pauli and the Reeperbahn. The Lovers Session began with quiet portraits indoors, continued across harbour bridges and the U-Bahn, and ended in sudden snow beneath red neon. Documentary observation and deliberately shaped portraits show their closeness without turning the afternoon into a performance.

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