A camera lunch menu

Cameras are like lunch menus. You either already know what you want, buy it, and enjoy every single bite. Or you should have gotten what Pablo had.

It’s late 2014. The air is moist and heavy, the sun is setting behind us. I am leaning out of the open door of a train, somewhere in Rajasthan, India, trying to take a picture of another train stuck outside and people waiting in front. My camera, a rundown Canon 5D MkII, makes it easy. Auto ISO, aperture priority, a 50mm 1.4. It’s a tool to capture what I see, it’s effortless. At this point in time, I‘m mostly shooting weddings, commercials, business portraits, and some scenes for educational books. When shooting for myself, I mainly do documentaries: capturing culture in intimate moments and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, which is not easy if you look like a tourist, wherever you go (I‘m a 6ft German redhead).

I learned photography from one of my best friends’ mum around 2006. She is a wedding photographer who has seen more couples saying yes than anybody can count. Over the years she always needed to re-invent herself, to go with the times, as they say – or simply: to make money. She has a style that I always admired and for the longest time tried to copy: it is unique, in the sense that you can always identify her pictures. Her images feel true and like an accidental capture of a moment that just happened to occur, but at the same time, perfect in its execution. It took me a lot of time to understand that those pictures weren‘t accidental. That it wasn‘t the full-frame sensor, the L-Lenses, or her Lightroom presets that made the look. That, in fact, her secret was that she knew what would happen. Her experience gave her a feeling for those little details: The little kid that had been quiet for the longest time, but will cry any moment, therefore the dad takes it to the back end of the church, while the ceremony is still moving on. The organist getting ready for the next song. That last look over the shoulder to the mum from the bride. Intimate moments that you can plan for and capture.