I’m not a photographer. Not trained. Not classic. No lighting setups. No makeup assistants. No big-budget productions. Just me, a camera, and the need to look at life the way I feel it.

As a man, I always preferred working with women in front of the lens during commissioned shoots – because it made it easier for me to open up. It felt more like flirting with the camera than being dissected by it. Easy. But when I shoot on my own – I shoot like a Lomographer: No viewfinder. No symmetry. From the hip. From angles so weird that people ask me: “Are you okay? What are you doing?” To understand that, you need to know where I come from: From the dictatorship of the East – where everything that smelled like the West was forbidden.

So now, after the fall of the Wall, everything I see becomes part of that old curiosity I carried for the world. I don’t recreate. I reclaim. With every shot. I’m definitely not a fashion photographer. But I am a Lomographer of feeling. I use everything the market ever made: Old digicams, pixelated early digital junk, analog point-and-shoots, and Soviet Lomos. Not to document – but to place the viewer right inside the moment.

Some pictures are from places far away – if you live in Berlin. Others are just face-to-face party snapshots. A smile into the lens. A flash of now. This is a hobby. A confession. A celebration. Have a look – and stand inside the frame.

And a very special thank-you goes to Nariya Koleskina, who reminded me: Stick to what you’re good at. I love the images you captured of us here – unforgettable.

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