My last shoot

Admittedly. The title sounds a bit dramatic. But I will try to explain it.

Every now and then I give workshops or mentor a photographer. It's almost never about technology. Not about cameras, lenses or other nerd talk. It's about the question: Why do you actually take photos?

I then talk about my own photography, not as a reference for "doing it right", but as an example. And ask questions:
What do you want to communicate?
If your session were a movie - which scenes would be the key moments, and what could be cut out?
How do you express yourself in your pictures?
And what do you want people to think about you when they see your photography?

Don't say you don't care.

I often see in such conversations how difficult these questions are. You can feel the hesitation, the search for words. Even in groups, when 6-8 people are sitting around me. It reminds me of training. A coach can show you how to lift weights and give you exercises. But if you don't change your mindset, you're stuck. You won't get anywhere with the old movements. At some point you have to drop or change something if you want to get stronger. In individual coaching sessions, I am an understanding but very honest sparring partner.

I recently had a photographer at this point. Clean, clear pictures, technically good. But she felt that wasn't enough for her. She wanted her pictures to be more intense, more emotional, more narrative. So I asked:
"What are you actually looking for in the people you photograph?"

She looked at me, thought about it and I had to think about myself.

To my last shoot.
The studio was already empty, the music was still playing. I drank my coffee, which had long since gone cold. The camera was on my lap. I clicked through the pictures. There were eyes that shone. A smile, a hint of sensuality. Exaggerated, almost acted. But in the picture it looks real.

A body that moves, a blouse. A body. Ingredients for a beautiful photo.
But was it really a portrait? Or just a staging?

I used to want to tell stories. Today, I sometimes realize that my pictures tell my story rather than that of the people in front of my camera. And that's where change begins. Quietly, without a bang, often very imperceptibly. You simply have to "look".

I was thinking about a conversation I had the other day. Someone said to me: "You can't see the change in your pictures "And he compared it to cars. Electric or petrol - hardly any difference from the outside. This comparison was banal, but it stuck.

Perhaps it's the same in photography. Some start freely, without inheritance, without obligations. Start-ups can start wherever they want. Big brands, on the other hand, have to rethink, let go, rebuild systems. A re-start is not always possible.

With Paulina 2024

I also think of filmmakers. Some have a framework, a way of working, a studio with great expectations and guidelines behind them. They rely on a few thick stacks of cards - and at some point realize that small, specialized studios are outstripping them. Simply because they can start where they want. Because they don't have to let go of anything that means something to them.

It's not about the loss of something I had.
It's about the loss of something I would never get if I didn't stop doing certain things.

To portray someone - that should be taken literally. Not make them more beautiful, not smoother. But to make visible who they are. With everything that goes with it: joy, fear, loss, idiosyncrasies. Pleasant or not. That's what it's all about for me. Not about the perfect pose, but about being there. Being together. From person to person.

I looked at the camera. And somewhere between switching it off and packing it up, I knew: this was my last shoot of this kind.

Not as the end. Rather as a beginning.