Sometimes you meet people again without realising it. Eliska I had photographed years earlier — at the World Bodypainting Festival, sometime in 2011 or 2012, while she was performing fire acts on stage. That this was the same person who, years later, stood across from me in a Vienna Airbnb didn't dawn on me right away. Some meetings only close themselves through detours. Sabi, by contrast, was completely new, a first session — and as it usually goes with first sessions: you sniff around each other for the first ten minutes, then you get to work.
What had preceded this calm setting, however, was my usual Vienna-arrival triathlon. Driving a car in Vienna is an idea I have successfully avoided for years, so I was, as usual, on foot and on the U-Bahn — with two camera bodies, several lenses, a portable flash with umbrella and stand, a continuous light and a sizeable amount of small gear I had deemed indispensable. On top of that, summer temperatures. Arriving at the Airbnb looking remotely presentable was, on that day, a discipline of its own at which I was only moderately successful. Geli, of course, was relaxed — she had come by car, as always.
The shoot was part of my 2016 charity calendar, and the two of them had organised an apartment for the occasion themselves. A stylishly furnished Airbnb in Vienna, with exactly that mix of liveability and curated aesthetic that interior designers tend to file under “character.” Over the hours we systematically used every corner the apartment offered — from the entrance hall through the living room, into the kitchen, all the way to the bathroom and back. If you rent a flat, you might as well get something out of it.
Geli was along again — as she always is, when no scheduling clash gets in the way. She handled the make-up for both models, and while I was trying to find a halfway unusual camera angle, she documented, on the side, what I looked like doing it — a behind-the-scenes photo in which I, contorted, head down, one arm braced on a windowsill, am attempting to get the shot. Such pictures, interestingly, are never taken when you look photogenic. That is part of the concept.
For this session, I deliberately leaned more on black-and-white than usual. Colour is a temptation a photographer easily gives in to in stylishly furnished apartments — every curtain, every wall, every grain of wood wants to join in. Black-and-white reduces things to the essentials, and in a fine-art series like this one, that fits.
This gallery is therefore a mix of two very different models, a well-staged apartment, a makeup artist with a sense of humour, and a photographer who occasionally assumes yoga positions he later wishes had been less well documented.
Thanks to Sabi and Eliska for the trust, to Geli for the make-up and the loving documentation of my contortions — and to the Airbnb itself, which for a few hours became the perfect fine-art stage.