Café Lehmitz.

In 1962, at the age of 18, Petersen was sent by his parents to Hamburg for six months so that he could learn German. He encountered the language, not in the way his parents expected, but on his own, amongst the friends he made with people who worked on the Reeperbahn. 'I was a romantic in my way and in my experiences, not realizing the way those that I met were used by the City of Hamburg in order to show the face of sin as a tourist attraction.'

Between 1965 and 1968, Petersen was a student of fellow Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm at the Stockholm Fotoskalan. Strömholm had discovered Petersen sneaking into the darkrooms to make prints. On seeing his work, Strömholm admitted Petersen to the school and encouraged him to photograph subjects with personal meaning. Petersen returned to Hamburg and began photographing in the Café Lehmitz in 1967. Located at the end of the Reeperbahn, Café Lehmitz was a place of refuge for those on the margins of society. Petersen spent much time there over two years getting to know the locals, often giving them prints and letting them take pictures themselves.

First Swedish edition; (241 x 258 mm, 9½ x 10¼ in); black & white photographs; plain endpapers, white cloth-covered boards, titles in black, white photo-illustrated dust jacket, printed in black and red, lightly marked and rubbed, light wear to edges, fine in a very good dust jacket; [124]pp.