Film & Text by Jan Eric Huehn | Edit by Alex Schuchmann

I stumbled across Babettes' work late last year. It fascinated me from the get-go; while I could recognise every element of her images, it still felt like there was much more to discover. I saw the characters and moments she portrayed and felt drawn into the scenes she opened up. While her work seemed almost photographic at first, the details I thought to see are in fact simple reduced lines, elements focused to a minimum yet full of information. 

When I arrived at her Studio, probably 2 months later, on a beautiful sunny day in February, her big smile as she greeted me hello. Both being native in German, we had agreed on speaking English throughout the day as we wanted to keep the language of the film more accessible. Still, our first words were in German—natural, unthinking. After all, this was Berlin, and our minds ran mostly in German. On the way upstairs, we recommitted to our plan: English from now on, all day long. We kept our promise.

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I am telling you this because while we had only met minutes before, had done one call of maybe 30 minutes, it felt like switching languages with a friend. A moment of awkwardness, when you speak in a different language with somebody you have had conversations with for years before. 

Babette's warm character, the honesty and vulnerability I had seen in her images. It was right in front of me in the open. And while we both still had some more minutes of getting to know each other ahead of us, before we were fully at ease, I already was even more: A Fan. 

If you are as well by now, have a closer look at her selected works bellow and support her work, while updating your home or collection:

Discover the work of Babette Semmer

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