Lukas Städler

I wish there would be a bit more routine so I could say how usually the day would look would be great for me, but I mean, I think what I like most about my job and the opportunity to work as a photographer is that each day is some kind of different. I get the opportunity to meet so many different people, so many different ways of living and realities, and that's the greatest gift for me. But still, I mean, I try to be outside [in] nature as much as possible, especially in summer. I don't know if you've ever experienced the Berlin summer?

It's magical! You have to come. Berlin winter is horrible. It's grey and dark, but the Berlin summer is beautiful, like being at the lakes.

I mean, that's what I'm trying to capture in my photos. But the whole vibe is different. I'm sure that applies for a lot of cities, but there's something special in Berlin, how people feel, you can feel it on the streets and how the people are interacting with each other and everyone's outside. Everyone's having fun. That's the vibe you get at least.

This time is short in Berlin, so we have to prepare for the dark, long, long winter.

Exactly. And then you have all those ideas about partying and techno in Berlin which also is a reality but there's life happening outside in nature, such as those cruising spots which have, especially if you come in the morning or in the evening, that very mystical feeling. Because Berlin parks are very beautiful. Like there's place called Tiergarten where I took a lot of photos which is hundreds of years old, and one of the biggest parks and I mean it's the biggest park in Berlin [and is] a very, very special place for sure.

Yeah, when I talk about cruising, it's mostly the gay cruising that I find in Berlin. There are different cruising spots also, like gay bars, or even public toilets, where people [go], in this case, mostly gay men, but that applies to also others or the LGBTQ [community] or even straight people that go there for secret fun. Well, I would say it's mostly a place where people meet for consensual, short sexual activities. Anonymous [encounters], is also a big part of this. There’s also different spaces like this forest called Grunewald, where I also took a lot of photos, especially of older men. You can even find a kind of a community there, people that would go to those places or people that know each other for, I don't know, 30, 40 years, and just spend the day in the sun there. It's kind of an area in the forest, not far from a lake, and people would just hang out there. So, it's both, it's not always only about sex and the interaction.

I don't think that's a special thing about Germany. I just started reading a book, which I don't have here now. It's just called Cruising, but it's from a U.S. author who describes all the history of New York cruising for example. What I think, what's particular about Berlin, is how it’s located in the parks, right in the city. I know that there's something similar in Paris, for example, but I've been to Paris, [and] I haven't seen the cruising spots there. But for Germany, Berlin is special for sure. In comparison to all the other cities I mean, Berlin is like the small bubble where everyone has the opportunity to live how they like, or for sure the place where you get most of the freedom you're wishing for, in comparison to other places in Germany, like Bavaria, Munich or Hamburg, [which are] much more conservative. So, that's a special thing for Berlin.

So, actually, it's been since I was a teenager, I already had my first proper camera, I think when I was 14, and with my best friend back then, we went into the forest and took photos of each other. I mean, they weren’t sexual at all. Still, somehow the same aesthetic [started the] direction that I'm working with now.
Anyways, I started studying fashion design after finishing school. So, when I was 19 I came to Berlin and started studying. I just knew that I wanted to do something creative. But it also came through, my grandmother was the one who taught me sewing. I think that if she had ever had the opportunity, she would have been a great fashion designer. So, it was also somehow to live her dream, and my mum's. She now tries to go in the same direction and design stuff for herself. But since they came from Kazakhstan in the late 70s, they did not really have the opportunity to study or do anything creative. They just had to work to take care of the family. So, I did fashion design, which was okay for me. It was interesting, but still I already shot all my lookbooks myself. I didn't really have the idea to pursue just photography as a professional. It took some more years.
So, after fashion design, I also studied fine art for a moment and focused more and more on photography. [My career] mostly happened, if I am honest, through Instagram because I just kept on. Things did not really change in the last 10 years, how I shoot people and how it [has] evolved, it's been mostly because people were asking me if I can take their portraits. So, I got somehow more secure with time. I mean, I wish it would be more secure even today but with photography, it's like it's just happening now. It's of course changing with the things people out there tell you or suddenly feel that people are actually interested in that. It’s nice.

Yeah, I would say that's what happened within the last five years, maybe, which was great to focus more on that, and then I also went like now I'm just graduating from an actual photo school. That's what I started during Covid, to focus more on [photography] and also to learn more techniques, everything around [the medium]. But still, I would say my approach to photography or how I interact with my subjects did not really change. I just got more confident on the topics that I'm working with, such as gay cruising. I think that I wouldn't have been confident enough four years ago to approach someone naked in the forest and ask them if I could take their portrait. So, there was quite a journey. I mean, I already had that feeling for years, that's something I would like to do, but it took me a long way to get the courage.

I mean, I don't want to talk too badly about this whole school thing because I know that it was helpful, but mostly it just gave me the kind of frame [of reference] because the idea and everything had always been there before, I educated myself aesthetic wise or also content wise. I think that it was good to have those appointments every two weeks where I knew, okay, I need to deliver something and I need to talk with other people about that. That was very helpful. And of course, there were also some things like shooting in the studio, for example, that helped me, but it's hard to say. I was always a bit difficult with those school things because I know that I need it, I need those places to go further, but I'm also, not stubborn, but I want to do my own thing.

Also, this whole thing with the Berlin art scene, much more came through the other things I did in the city the last years, like all the jobs that I've done. I worked for a private art collection for a long time called Borris collection, and that gave me the connections. That’s also how I met the gallery I'm working with right now. So, it was quite independent from school. I know that the school would like to present that idea.

Yeah. Right now I'm focusing on that. I mean, I'm also lucky that I have the opportunity to work with so many different [subjects], not only portraits, but also I'm working with a dance company a lot. Then people sometimes ask me for events or also product photography. It's nice too with each job, or each opportunity, I get to go further and learn things and work with new people. Right now it's only photography, I’m hoping, I mean, that was actually my dream, and that's what I'm really, really thankful [and] only focused on that and not on any other jobs right now.

There's several different cameras I'm working with. For most of the photos that are presented in the gallery now for the show, it's all analogue, and I have different cameras with 35 millimetres and 120 millimetres. So, there's a contact, there's a Mamiya, but then also for other jobs that would work, digital. So, it's a bit hard to say. There's a big collection, but still, I prefer to work analogue. It's mostly about the feeling, also the concentration that I have, like a totally different way of focusing on that moment, how to capture that person or that light. Whereas you do digital, you can just shoot, shoot, shoot. But this excitement, I would say, never changed since I started taking the first photos when I was 14 to take the photos to get developed. Now, with the school, I even have the opportunity, or learned how to print the negatives in the dark room, which is also very exciting.

I mean, for me personally, it is like that. I'm sure that other photographers can work the same way digitally and also focus on that very moment. For me, this sounds very cheesy, but it just feels like magic, not having those photos in that moment. It gives you a very different kind of concentration, like I would say I'm very humbled in those moments and especially having those photos and coming back from the development.

I think voyeurism, in my perception, gives you a different feeling of what I'm doing because you could have the idea it's some sort of voyeurism. But it's something in between because I'm also not that much involved in the cruising photos that I'm taking. But still, there are a lot of photos that are staged. I mean, I think that's also another question of yours anyway. A lot of people that I took photos of, in those cruising scenes, I knew before, that's like people that I would have explained or shot photos with before. Some of them were even my friends or lovers or anything in between. So, they’re people that already trusted me and knew that I wouldn't expose them.
Then there are also other people that I really have never seen before that I met at those places, especially the older people. There were men that were older than 70 and I had really, really interesting conversations with them about how it was back then, or how they are feeling now. It was very important for them that I didn’t show their faces or their names. But still, I would have a conversation with them first, and then maybe took a photo of their upper body. So, it does not really feel like voyeurism for me in that case because it would never be that I just observe people having sex and I would be behind the bush taking a photo. I never did that. But it's what a lot of people think when they see the story. That's also, I think, important to communicate.

I remember the very first time where I wanted to shoot but I didn't really dare to ask. This person was at a cruising area where there is also a lake, and there was this very old man sitting next to me. He was super, it was a hot summer day. He was super tanned and sweating and the light was coming through the trees, and I could see all the shadows of the leaves on his body. I thought, that's a wonderful image, but I just didn't dare to ask him. So, I just left and I was thinking about this situation for months, and I just knew that if there are more of those kinds of opportunities, I do have to learn. So, it was a year after, when I was with a good friend in this cruising area again, and l I asked him if could we maybe do some cruising photos, and he would climb the tree and was naked there. So, that was kind of my first approach, which gave me then more courage to ask other people. Then months later I would even go there with a porn actor, for example, and with two guys actually having sex there. That was something, still none of those photos are kind of pornographic, I would say. I would always try to get the central romantic feeling with it. But I also learned that to do that with people that actually feel confident with being in front of the camera before. So, it's a mix of all.

It’s a mix of all.

I wouldn’t say it's more of this or more of that. It's happening very naturally, fortunately. So, I don't really have the feeling that I need to force anything. It's all coming and the people that I meet through different fields.

It’s hard to say, because people ask me that a lot and it's mostly, because people will warn me that they feel insecure in front of the camera, but then after the shoot, they would always say okay, that was really easy, and thank you for making me that comfortable. I would say it’s everything in between connection of people and mostly through conversation. So, I give everything so that my subjects don't feel exposed. I will always take care if they don't want to have their faces shown. But also if they want to, it's a lot of giving enough time and space and talking to people. I feel like just being empathetic. It sounds simple, but I know that it does not apply to everyone, but then it also applies to this idea why I'm so glad of actually being a photographer and having the opportunity to meet all those different people and finding connections with them, maybe even if you only meet for one hour.

For me it was. I don't know how many gay and queer photographers you know, from Berlin, but there are several of us. I also appreciate all of the work, a lot of my friends are photographers, and they go into very different kinds of directions. I already knew, I've been thinking about this series for a while. But, I was still wondering, is there the need for another gay, male photographer in Berlin to take photos of other naked men? But then, when I started, I felt like, especially also with the feedback I got from other people, that I, especially with the sexuality, I tried to find a different approach which is much more sensible and romantic and maybe, not just harsh fucking. I wanted to find another place in between.
Also, I'm a nature person, so I tried to be outside as much as possible. All those trees and flowers and lakes, they've always been an inspiration for me. Then to find this combination of both, which is something special already, and then to find settings and phases and moments where those two things bleed into each other, that was very inspiring for me. It's not so much about the sexual interaction itself. I mean, at this point, hopefully in a few months, my book will be released. So, I'm working on this, there will be way more aspects. The photos that are presented now in the gallery are mostly details of some body parts, also some romantic moments, but if this book comes out, you will also see a bit more sex.

Talking about my grandmother, I have to start further [back] because she would, if I think about the last almost 20 years, she was the person I took the most photographs of. She was not only one of the most important people of my family in my life, but also such a deep inspiration for me. Not only that she just looked beautiful, but also she was such a loving, humble person and with the history of my family that grew up. She was born in Ukraine, but then she spent most of her teenage years in the Gulag in Siberia, taken by the Russians and had a very horrible childhood and teenage years. She was very traumatised by that, and it's something I also then grew up with, with this trauma in my family. Especially then, in the last years, I think it was 2018 when her dementia started, and she would start to forget everything that just happened, but she would always keep on telling what happened back then, during war times. So, there was a moment where I realised it will be important for me to capture that, and I even made a video of her.
It was interesting what she taught and it was important for me to capture that but also her whole aesthetic was always very important for me, all the plastic flowers that she brought from Kazakhstan. Her whole house looked overloaded and romantic as you can probably imagine, this Eastern European idea of kitsch, which very much applies to me and that’s why I actually see the connection to the photos that I took outside in those cruising spots, like the way I look at flowers in nature, it really comes from my grandmother. Which is interesting because I’m the only person that’s ever been connected with her [aesthetic] in my family, like my parents for example hate the idea of plastic flowers and they try to be as modern as possible, where I feel a deep connection to it.
That also brings me onto the other photos that are shown in the gallery which I took in Kazakhstan last year, when I finally traveled with my father to see where they grew up and this whole heritage.

I’ve shown it in art school at a university. It is online. I’m just thinking if there would be another exhibition, would it make sense to show it. So let’s see. But you’ve also been asking me how it was to take photos of her very last moments, and I mean I visited her at her death bed and also at this point, it was so clear, my whole family was so used to me taking photos of her that everyone just accepted it and it did not feel odd for me at all, or even at the funeral. That was interesting for me because it’s my way of reflecting and dealing with things. Even in such an intense moment, like the funeral, one of your family members, it gave me some kind of distance which I needed in that moment but still I was so connected with her and I knew that was just important for me, and maybe also for the family, to just have those moments just not thinking at all to ever show this photo in an exhibition.
But having this now all together really makes sense for me and really touches me that even other people that don’t know me or my grandmother, are still interested about that. It was very overwhelming how many people approached me during and after the exhibition opening, [with] what they felt by seeing those photos. They really had the urge to tell me about their emotions and that was always my dream to somehow show emotions through photographs, and it was a dream that I never really thought would happen, so I’m even more humbled for that now.

All those connections I'm trying to show, are is in the end very universal. Also, in some moments, it also makes me think, how much do I really want to share of my personal life? But then, it's also for me, I could already feel that in my early years of fashion design studies, and then later also studying fine arts, the things that really got into the work were things that were attached to me personally. And that's the way I work best.

It's hard to say because I can feel that there are more and more people interested. The things that I show will of course be personal. I'm not so sure yet how much I want to be seen as the person behind it, so how much I want to present myself, and that’s a whole different thing. I maybe also just have to get used to that in the future. So, that's things I'm learning right now, and I'm so glad to have people, like this gallery behind me, because they're really giving me good hints and pushes in the right moment and [act] kind of [as] new mentors in that way, for those questions.

I already have this kind of experience with the show that I have now with Dittrich & Schlecriem in the gallery. It is a great opportunity for both exhibitions to at first, really have the time to focus on the work, which is new for me, because the years before where I did other production jobs, or when I was working in art spaces, I had to use my, just work at night or have my one day off in the week to use that to take the photos. So, now it's finally changing to actually being a photographer and opportunities like those exhibitions, just push me more into that direction, and also having the materials and good places to print. They will also give me a stage, they will be giving an artist talk, which is something new for me, and very exciting. I'm very glad that I got this opportunity for this year to finally show this work.

It’s a bit hard to say, to talk about, I would like mostly just to announce that there's going to be at book before I talk too much about it. In the end, it's just in negotiation with the publishers now and, who knows, in the end, it still takes another year for this whole publishing thing. It's so interesting, how much work and rounds it takes to get through. Then it's also, of course, a whole other question of financing it. I'm honoured and for sure there's going to be very personal work [in it]. I will have people writing stories and texts for me, and it's going to feature a wide selection of the cruising photos. So, that's for sure.

I already know several other things that work. Since I have a background as a dancer, I used to be a professional ballroom dancer, actually in my teenage years. I'm connected to a lot of dancers in the city. I also dance ballets myself, so I really love to have those connections to different kinds of dancers and companies and take photos of them. That's something that interests me, and I also want to go deeper.
Since I have my connection to fashion, even if I decided quite quickly that I didn't want to be a fashion designer myself, I'm still interested in that. I'm doing a lot of editorials for magazines right now which is also super interesting, so different. Since I'm doing the cruising thing, always myself, like it's just me and my cameras, it's so interesting and nice to work with a bigger team like hair and makeup, stylists and also other light technicians. That's super interesting.
Going more into that documentary series or to evolve that practice of my cruising photos, I experienced what I already mentioned, things were super interesting for me when I was meeting the older guys, people that have been on the street fighting in the 80s for the rights of my generation right now. Then also surviving the HIV crisis. There's so many interesting stories that those people have to say, and I want to focus on that maybe and meet more of those men and share those stories by taking portraits of them.
Regarding the connection that I had with my grandmother, I was thinking about how do I want to grow old one day? So, that might be something, well I'm actually already working on that.