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Hafenliebe Elopement Photography

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Hamburg
Hafenliebe Elopement Photography

Elopements, lovers sessions, intimate portraits and small weddings. Based in Hamburg, working across Europe and worldwide. Queer-affirming.

Impressum: https://hafenliebe.co/impressum/

10/08/2026

I love Superkilen, which is slightly inconvenient because everybody else seems to love it too. It is one of Copenhagen’s hipster and Instagram spots, full of people and photographs that have already been made. Every time I go back, I try to find something different and remove everyone who happens to walk through my frame. Usually not by force.

Kris and Ilya went there with me the day before they got married. We had eaten together the evening before, but this was our first time with a camera between us. No registrar was waiting. There was no ceremony to reach. We had time to try things and for me to quietly wonder whether Ilya was enjoying any of them.

Kris gives his energy away almost immediately. Ilya keeps his closer. I know that feeling because I can be exactly the same, but apparently self-awareness does not stop me from becoming a grumpy idiot when I cannot read someone else.

Between his Kazakh accent, my German English and the fact that we had known each other for less than a day, some things were probably lost in translation. Meanwhile, Ilya did every bit of stupid s**t I suggested. He changed position, lay down on the painted lines and stayed open to whatever we tried. He could have said no at any point. I am fairly sure he would have.

Then he noticed the words “F**K MY ASS” underneath them, completely lost it and insisted that we make the photograph there.

Right. He was fine.

We kept changing height and distance until two men in good clothes were lying on the ground in the middle of Copenhagen, because apparently that was where the fu***ng picture was.

07/08/2026

I was already booked. F**k.

Jule had asked me to photograph their wedding in a small village in southern Germany. She was making her own dress, there would be Irish music and the ceremony would move between English and German. I wanted to be there, but the date was gone.

That should have ended the conversation. Jule wrote back. She and Rory lived in Dundalk and had maybe twenty decent photographs together, most of them taken with a phone. Her solution was that I come to Ireland after the wedding. They would put their wedding clothes back on and we would spend three days making photographs around the places where they actually lived.

Was that a completely unreasonable response to a scheduling conflict? Yes. Did I want to do it immediately? Also yes.

We met for the first time two months after their wedding and went straight into spending three days together. The first thing we did was walk into the moor in their wedding clothes.

Jule and Rory came up here regularly. Wearing the dress was Jule’s idea. Rory’s first reaction was basically: “What the f**k? You’re hardly taking the good clothes into that muck?” She did. He came with her.

There was a film set built for Vikings on land owned by friends of theirs. Or maybe their parents. I explained that I had never seen Vikings or Game of Thrones and that the original Highlander was all anybody needed.

Then we arrived in the middle of the day, the light was s**t and the entire idea stopped working. So I killed it. The set never made it into the photographs. The trees did. I did use the portable toilet, so the visit wasn’t entirely wasted.

The sunset was less negotiable. We knew exactly where we needed to be and when the light would be right. Fifteen minutes before that, we were sitting in the car behind a flock of sheep blocking the road, all of us politely willing them to f**k off before the sun did. They moved. We made it.

The photographs from that first walk are still my favourites. They have all the atmosphere and almost none of the usual wedding bulls**t.

I couldn’t photograph the wedding Jule first wrote to me about. That should have been the end of it. Jule didn’t let it.

Thank f**k.

03/08/2026

I like photographing couples the evening before they get married. We can get to know each other by actually making photographs, with nowhere else to be and no ceremony waiting for us. Then we meet again the next morning and we are not starting from zero. We already know how it feels to work together.

That does a lot for trust. It also gives us enough time to get past the photographs everyone expects us to make first.

Petra is a photographer herself. I’m genuinely proud that photographers book me as often as they do. It also makes me fu***ng nervous. The imposter syndrome gets louder because another photographer can see every decision, every compromise and every frame that nearly works but doesn’t. Why does that make me more nervous than photographing anyone else? No idea. It just does.

That evening, we worked until the light went blue. An ugly fishing sign entered the frame and became more useful than the clean beach around it. We had nowhere else to be, so we kept following ideas until the light was gone.

We met again early the next morning, before the celebrant and the witnesses arrived. That was when we went into the water. By the time the ceremony began, we had already spent the previous evening and the start of the morning making photographs together. Nobody had to begin their wedding day by trying to work out who the photographer was or how any of this was supposed to feel.

Looking at these photographs now, ten years later, I’m struck by how cinematic they already were. The location, the light and the time we had made them feel less like a conventional couple session and more like stills from a film.

I want to make more photographs like this. Actually, I should make more photographs like this, because apparently I’m quite fu***ng good at it.

I can already hear the imposter syndrome arguing. It can f**k off for five minutes.

31/07/2026

In November 2019, I was on a plane to Mexico to photograph a wedding, listening to Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism. Then came the line “I need you so much closer”, and it got stuck.

I had been photographing weddings for seven years but had never wanted to get married myself. I wasn’t against it. I just didn’t need it. Marriage belonged to the people in front of my camera. On that flight, asking Jana suddenly felt right. I still can’t explain it much better than that.

At the end of December, we went to Denmark with friends for New Year’s. I told Nicole about the plan the evening before. The next morning, while Jana and I were still in bed, I asked her. She said yes. That evening, we went to Rubjerg Knude Fyr because I wanted photographs. Nicole took them. She is fu***ng fantastic.

The wind was fu***ng awful. Sand came at us sideways and Jana kept saying she couldn’t open her eyes. I told her to ignore it for a few minutes and enjoy what had just happened. I wasn’t asking her to perform for the camera. I knew Nicole would get the photographs. More importantly, I knew she would get us.

Jana asked how exactly she was supposed to enjoy anything with sand in her eyes. Fair question. Telling someone to enjoy their engagement while they are being sandblasted beside a lighthouse is not particularly useful advice.

By the time we returned to the house, Nicole had sand in her eyes too. The photographs are fu***ng wonderful. Making them was not.

When Jana and I eventually got married, we did it at the registry office with no guests. We knew from the beginning that we wanted it to be just us, without a day organised around everybody else’s expectations.

Hafenliebe had already existed for years, so this is not where it began. But it made the work personal in a way it hadn’t been before. After seven years of photographing other people choosing marriage, I understood why it could matter when the choice actually belonged to you.

It turns out I didn’t need marriage in the abstract. I wanted this one, with Jana.

Photos: Nicole Siemers

27/07/2026

The celebrant told Petra and Roman about the sharks the evening before their wedding in Sydney. Considering they planned to say their vows on a longboard, this was extremely useful information. Thanks for nothing.

We took it seriously, obviously. Roman had lived in Sydney for three years and had years of experience as a surfer. He knew the water and made the decision based on that experience, not because five people on boards sounded like a cool wedding idea. The warning mattered. The timing was still s**t.

Roman wanted Petra to know the place that had once been his home, so the water was always going to be part of their wedding. Their families thought they had travelled to Australia for Roman’s fortieth birthday, which was technically true. They had simply left out the celebrant, two witnesses and the part where they would come home married.

The next morning, Petra and Roman climbed onto the same longboard. The celebrant and their witnesses took their own boards and paddled out beside them. The entire wedding was happening on the water.

I remember looking at the whole thing and thinking: this is completely fu***ng ridiculous. Five people trying to balance on four boards, one witness pregnant, a celebrant attempting to conduct a wedding while the ocean kept moving underneath everyone. And I mean “ridiculous” as the highest possible compliment.

And I had travelled from Germany to Sydney for this. More than a day in transit to photograph two people getting married on a longboard while a pregnant witness tried not to fall into shark water nearby.

It wasn’t the last time I travelled that far for photographs. I still don’t really understand how this became my job. I’m not complaining.

24/07/2026

These photographs were not where we started. They were almost where we finished.

We had already spent several hours photographing in other parts of Berlin before we went into the apartment. Noah and Michèle stay there regularly when they are in the city, and the people they stay with have become friends. The room was familiar. They already felt safe there.

Talking about intimate photographs beforehand doesn’t mean I get to expect them several hours later. That’s not how consent works. Nothing about that trust was owed to me.

By then we had spent hours working together. Michèle, who is a photographer herself, moved between being photographed and picking up her own camera to photograph Noah. Nobody forgot that cameras were in the room. We simply knew each other better than we had at the beginning of the day.

Noah later told me they had felt seen and comfortable being themselves, including the vulnerable parts of their body and identity.

I don’t want to turn that into a larger claim about what kind of photographer I am. I’m just fu***ng grateful they trusted me enough to end the day here.

12/03/2026

Roman turns 50 today. Ten years ago he got married at Palm Beach. Nobody knew that was happening either.

Surfboards in the ocean. Three of us there at five in the morning. The witnesses and the celebrant came a few hours later.

Roman had lived in Sydney and fallen in love with the place before he even met Petra. He wanted her to see it. That was the reason. They paddled out on surfboards and said their vows in the water, and that evening they drove up the coast and swam with dolphins, and I wasn’t there for that last part and I think that’s probably right.

These photos are from the early morning. Before anyone else arrived. Just the three of us and that coast and whatever was starting to happen with the light.

Ten years. I’m still glad I was there for the part I was there for.

04/11/2025

I shot their wedding a couple years back. Then they came back to help me teach at a workshop.

And here's what I don't teach: how to make couples look at the camera and smile.

F**k that.

I teach how to blend documentary with direction with something that actually looks like art. Movie stills. Album covers. Anton Corbijn shooting Depeche Mode like they're ghosts.

Because most wedding photography is boring as hell. Safe. Predictable. The same posed bulls**t in every portfolio.

I hardly shoot big weddings anymore. Just elopements and lovers sessions. The intimate work where I can actually push things and where the couple trusts me enough to create something that feels cinematic, not just "pretty."

You know what separates a great photo from a forgettable one?

The mood.

Not the smile. Not the pose. The moment someone forgets to perform and just... exists.

That's what I'm after. That's what I teach.

If you want photos that look like everyone else's, I'm not your photographer. But if you want something that feels like it belongs in a gallery or on a movie poster? Let's talk.

30/10/2025

I was talking to my buddy yesterday and we got into one of those conversations that just stayed with me.

We were talking about what we wish we booked more of. And I brought up these lovers sessions. Just two people who want to spend time together, doing something that matters to them.

While we were talking, I kept thinking about this couple i worked with on Gran Canaria. Their shared passion is running. So we shot them running together. Not posed. Just them, doing what they love, together.

In those few hours, they escaped everything. The routines. The stress. The everyday noise. They entered their own world.

But here’s the thing that pi**es me off.

In Germany, it feels like people only do this for the „big things.“ Engagement. Wedding. Baby. The milestones everyone agrees are „worth it.“

Don’t get me wrong, I shoot those too. But why do we need a reason at all?

I’ve shot weddings for thirteen years. You know how many couples have come back just because they wanted to? Almost none.

These sessions aren’t about the photos. They’re about carving out time to be together. Really together. Doing something that reminds you why you chose each other.
Running. Cooking. Walking at golden hour. Whatever makes you feel alive together.

You don’t need a milestone. You just need to decide your love, right now, exactly as it is, deserves to be remembered.

I’m not saying this because I make a living from it. I’m saying it because I’ve watched too many couples wait for the „right time“ that never comes.

When was the last time you did something together just because?

If the answer is „I can’t remember“, maybe it’s time.

I have space before end of year. Hamburg or wherever you want to go.

DM me or link in bio.

Adresse

Hamburg

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https://www.hafenliebe.co/

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