Why couple session in Berlin
Most plans for a couple photoshoot in Berlin start with a list of landmarks, and that list is the first thing to shorten. The city is enormous and flat, so famous places sit far apart and nothing lets you see from one to the next. A ninety-minute session that tries to reach the Brandenburg Gate, the East Side Gallery and the Museumsinsel spends most of its light underground. Picking one neighbourhood changes the result: along the Landwehrkanal you get water, plane trees and old iron bridges; in Mitte you get sandstone and colonnades; in Treptow a long, formal avenue lined with willows. Because there are no hills, what decides the good hour is simply which way a street faces.
Summer evenings are long this far north: from May to August sunset comes after nine, so a session can start at eight without anyone leaving work early. September and October offer the best balance of light, warmth and quiet towpaths. In December the whole thing moves to about two in the afternoon, since it is dark before four. For the Bode-Museum without coach parties, the slot is before eight in the morning.
How the session runs
In Kreuzberg the session usually starts on the Paul-Lincke-Ufer, walking and talking for a few minutes while you forget about the camera. From there the route follows the canal, where the plane trees break up the low sun and the water throws some of it back up at you. The second location is the Oberbaumbrücke, open to the west, with the sun sitting inside its arcade in the final hour of daylight. If Mitte suits you better, the same idea works around Monbijoupark and the tip of the museum island in the morning. Forty edited photographs follow within 48 to 72 hours.
What’s included
- 40 edited photographs
- Two locations, on foot
- A route planned around the light, not the diary
- Private gallery within 48 to 72 hours
