It begins round December 2021. My companion and I stay in Toulouse. She works in an administration workplace, I’m a younger lawyer. I’m the agency’s little hand, I work loopy hours and don’t be taught a lot. She’s uninterested in the gradual tempo of initiatives and the gossip between colleagues. One night she says to me: “Why don’t we drop all this? Why don’t we go and be a part of our good friend F in Berlin for some time?
At first, I didn’t take it effectively. There’s this comfy condominium we’ve simply purchased. There’s the stress, an actual sickness with me, which I’m treating and I’m simply beginning to really feel good.
After which the concept takes maintain. At work, the times are lengthy, ready for somebody to wish me in court docket or for my boss to deign to offer me a file. So, locked away in my workplace, I begin doing different issues, equivalent to studying about images. It’s essential to kill a while, and images pursuits me greater than the regulation as I used to be training it at that second.
A number of weeks later, the choice was made. My companion’s contract was coming to an finish. As for me, I gave my discover and arrange my very own images enterprise. We’re off.
We arrived in Germany on the finish of August, staying with our good friend F whereas we seemed for lodging. We searched and searched, however discovered nothing. We uncover Berlin’s housing disaster. With no correct work contract, it’s inconceivable to signal a lease. So we keep at F’s for some time, earlier than lastly discovering a sublet.
With regards to images, I do odd jobs. Photographing dishes in eating places for dwelling supply platforms, a report on a tattoo artist for a journalist good friend. The remainder of the time, I work on free initiatives and stay off my financial savings. A number of reveals at Berlin Vogue Week and largely road images.
Berlin in 2022-2023. My native contacts inform me that town is altering. It was once that artists lived in Mitte, within the coronary heart of town heart. Actual property was low-cost. You can get by with out having to earn an excessive amount of cash.
As we speak, the economic system has developed. The choice actions have moved to the outskirts, to Moabit and Neukölln. On the similar time, buildings are altering, luxurious properties are multiplying and the working lessons are transferring away from town heart. Town has grow to be gentrified.
I needed to {photograph} this. A altering metropolis, marked by its previous, counter-culture actions and present occasions, such because the struggle in Ukraine. To maintain a hint of Berlin between two intervals, a metropolis midway between the tip of the Soviet Union and a standardized European capital.
As for me, I used to be between my hole 12 months and my entry into the skilled world of images.
Marius Balayn
Full gallery: www.balaynphoto.com
Additionally on instagram
I want to exhibit my work in a gallery, be at liberty to contact me on this hyperlink.
This work was largely shot on Fomapan 200 with a Leica III paired with the Voigtlander Kolor Skopar 35mm f2.5 LTM mount.
