With Kathi, I still couldn't tell you exactly when it actually started. Some working relationships last a project or two and end without much fuss — this one quietly turned into a given somewhere along the way.
It started with a handful of single sessions. Over the years, those turned into so many that I can no longer count them. Hotel-room editorials in Vienna, mood pieces among the shipping containers at the Alberner Hafen, themed shoots in the studio, the book project for Geli, beach sessions in Luberegg, portraits with so much make-up that Geli was almost prouder of the final image than I was — and yes, FX bodyslime once, the same stuff as in the movie Alien. One of those ideas you can't quite trace back afterwards, but which worked surprisingly well.
Geli — Angelika Oswald — has been my trusted makeup artist for a long time and is on most of my shoots. Over the years, the professional side has turned into a friendship in which nobody has to play a role any more. She's from Vienna and therefore usually drives. Putting me behind the wheel in Vienna myself is an idea that hasn't grown more charming over the years, and Geli doesn't mind anyway — so she picks us up, ferries us from set to set, and I get to deal with other things. She has been writing a book for what feels like forever, one that somehow never quite seems to be finished, and I tease her about it as reliably as she retaliates: with behind-the-scenes photos of me in poses no one should see. The scoreboard is roughly even.
Kathi is a different kind altogether. She is the most easy-going model I have ever worked with — and that after more than two decades in this job. If the idea is adventurous, Kathi is in. If the ground is muddy, Kathi is in. If it is cold, if the water is too shallow or the hall too dusty, if the wind whistles through the containers at the Alberner Hafen until the camera shakes — Kathi is in. There are these rare people who no longer have to perform in front of the camera, because they already are exactly the person you are looking for. She is one of them.
This gallery is therefore not a single session but a body of work spanning years. A selection of what happens when three people know each other well, no longer have to prove that they know what they are doing.
Thanks to Kathi for everything. And to Geli — as always.