Cafe Lehmitz, a beer joint in the red-light district of Hamburg, played a pivotal role as a meeting point for a diverse group of people, including prostitutes, pimps, transvestites, workers, and petty criminals. It was here that a young Anders Petersen, at the age of 18, stumbled upon the establishment in 1962 and formed relationships with its regulars that would shape his life forever.
In 1968, Petersen returned to Lehmitz with renewed purpose and began to capture the daily lives of its inhabitants through his photography. His photographs, now considered classics of their genre, have a powerful impact on viewers due to their candidness and authenticity. Petersen’s images of Lehmitz are marked by a deep sense of solidarity with his subjects, preventing voyeurism or false pity from arising when examining a milieu generally referred to as “asocial.”
Petersen’s photographic style is characterized by its gritty, raw, and unfiltered nature. Using a 35mm camera, he captured intimate moments and emotions at close range, creating images that reflect the harsh realities of the subjects he photographed. Petersen’s work challenges the conventional representation of marginalized communities as passive and powerless, portraying his subjects as individuals with agency and dignity.
The photographs of Cafe Lehmitz not only showcase the daily lives of its inhabitants but also depict them as part of a vibrant community with its self-image and dignity. Petersen’s work has significantly impacted the documentary photography genre, inspiring new generations of visual storytellers. In this sense, his images have become a part of the canon of documentary photography, with his photographs of Cafe Lehmitz being some of the field’s most significant and influential works.
