STEFAN FRICKE

SIGRID KWELLA

SIGRID KWELLE is a lesbian tango dance instructor who lives in Berlin and paints in oils. This would be a peculiar enough CV for any woman, let alone one with very short arms. Sigrid is very active in the field of women’s rights, especially for disabled women.

MAT FRASER

MAT FRASER is a British actor and writer who toured the UK with his show “Thalidomide!! – a musical”. Some of my models are uncertain, reluctant – Mat can’t wait to thrust his genitals and his political views at me. He challenges and bickers with me constantly, and makes no secret of giving himself a helping hand right before his shoot so that everything looks as big as possible for the camera.

DORIS PAKENDORF

DORIS PAKENDORF is in the middle of a divorce. She smokes and drinks too much, but inside she’s a true lady. Her pose has a sculptural elegance as she holds a wine glass thoughtfully between the toes of her left foot.

ANDREAS MEYER

ANDREAS MEYER is an intellectual, a Contergan activist whom I find rather stiff at first, but he has all the facts and figures of the Contergan scandal at his fingertips. He says that Grünenthal’s head chemist started his career experimenting on Jews in the concentration camp at Krakow. After sharing a few beers, Andreas and I become very close and together we plan to found an underground Contergan terrorist movement. The morning after, heads pounding, it doesn’t look like we’ll do this after all – or will we….?

SOFIA PLICH

SOFIA PLICH was a social worker, and was unemployed for many years. She dreams of being an actress, and of flying. In the build-up to her shoot, worrying about her appearance, she comments that gravity has taken its toll on all of us now that we’re middle-aged. So for her photo, I ask her to jump, so I can show her in mid-flight, defying gravity.

THEO ZAVELBERG

THEO ZAVELBERG is a gardener, a man of nature, with a face like an ancient oak tree. Shy and reserved, he hides behind a rose bush for his photo.

KIM MORTON

KIM MORTON, from Belfast, has been a professional singer, author, and Mayor of her district council. She staged a hunger strike, which won higher compensation for British victims of Thalidomide – three to four times as much as her German counterparts. She brings a photo of her son to keep her company in her session – he’s a soldier in Afghanistan. She’s one of six sisters, and they’ve never seen each other topless, let alone naked. Despite her personal and political strength, posing naked for me is an intimidating challenge.

BIANCA VOGEL

World-class dressage rider BIANCA VOGEL knows exactly what her prop will be – her beloved 800 kilo horse, Roquefort. I can’t say no to this beautiful, intelligent lady, but how the hell are we going to squeeze the huge beast into the studio? In the end I had to compromise the searing honesty of the photos and resort to digital trickery.

FRED DOVE

Then came FRED DOVE, a broadcaster and presenter on the BBC World Service and one of the loveliest men I’ve ever met.

PETRA UTTENWEILER

PETRA UTTENWEILER from Stuttgart veiled herself secretively for her photo. Her great charm and talent for flirting left me almost speechless. Just as well I’ve been happily married for twenty eight years!

NIKO VON GLASOW

And now it’s my turn: NIKO VON GLASOW. My prop is indeed something very dear to me – my lively, cheeky son Mandel. He has no interest at all in my little arms; he’s far more amused by being asked to pose alongside his naked father. Like a happy little Oedipus, he points and laughs at my willy, and makes the ordeal a whole lot more bearable than it would otherwise have been.