Berlin Stories 3: Ralph Mecke. Naked Jungle

Pictures by the fashion and portrait photographer Ralph Mecke are dark, mysterious, and charged with an idiosyncratic energy. Mecke, born in Berlin and living today in New York City, often returns to the German capital for assignments from Liberation or Vogue, where his eye turns familiar places into new domains that open up to the imagination. For instance, he presents Nadja Auermann—the epitome of the Berlin model—in the deserted cellar of Berlin’s famous nightclub Tresor, or he confronts a sculpture at the Berlin Wall memorial site with the gaze of a beautiful woman. In another photo, the façade of renowned dance haven Berghain and its two illuminated windows loom. Mecke also presents a whole series of strong characters such as Jonathan Meese, Hannelore Elsner, Clemens Schick, Heike Makatsch, and Campino, amid skulls and gloomy still lifes. This is as much a book as it is a concept album.