Text von Roger Anderson.
München, Schirmer/Mosel, 1978
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. The resulting book is an authentic portrait of these people, 'one of the finest photobooks of the decade,' according to Martin Parr and Gerry Badger.
First edition, inscribed on the title-page; 8vo (238 x 212 mm, 9¼ x 8¼ in); black-and-white photographs printed in offset; cream adhesive-bound wrappers, edges lightly tones, photo-illustrated dust-jacket attached at spine as issued, two nicks to bottom edge, minor wear to extremities, light toning, near-fine; 18, [98]pp.
The Photobook A History, I pp230-1; The Open Book pp318-9; Books from the Auer Collection p612.
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