This was Difficult!

I photographed the likely next chancellor of Germany during the election campaign for public television (ZDF).

For a documentary series about the election campaign in Germany, I photographed the leading candidate of the conservative party (CDU), Friedrich Merz.

These people have very little time, are impatient and want to control their public image.

On this day, 3 film sets were shot with him and a photo shoot was done. The photo shoot was to take place right at the beginning so that the rest of the documentary could then be shot. The photo shoot was also filmed because it was used as an intro for the documentary.

I have photographed well-known people before, but this was a new league. Plus the pressure of there being a huge film crew filming the shoot. And the press officers who pay close attention to which photos are taken of their protégé. I also really wanted to take pictures that didn't look so typical of corporate/politicians. It is not easy to take new pictures of a person who has been in the public eye for decades. So I asked him if I could take a picture of him from behind. He has a very distinctive head and you would recognize him immediately. He said that no one had ever taken such pictures of him and agreed. This is also my favorite picture from the series.

Another difficulty was that this party is completely against my own political views. But since this job was for the free press and not for the party, I could reconcile it with my conscience. The way in which the photograph is used is very important here; it is about strict journalistic classification, not election advertising.

Shot: Nikon Z7II, 70mm, 1/160, ISO 200