I had the privilege recently of doing a shoot of fellow photography enthusiast Ariane Jensen in her home – who, it turns out, has a history as fascinating as it is long. She is in her eighties.

Hailing from East Germany, Ariane managed to escape to the West in 1955 at the age of 21. Nothing dramatic; she simply did not return from a beaurocratic trip to West Berlin with her mother. Her mother, who did return, was a well-known East German artist: Ariane still has some of her original works and two small books on her career. It was fascinating to see illustrations of the young Ariane in the books, as well as of other family members such as the grandfather who one day simply died while reading his newspaper.

In a twist of irony that I normally only associate with short fiction, Ariane’s father was killed on the last day of the second world war.

Despite periodic difficulties in being understood by each other due to our language differences, we had a great afternoon of photography, discussion, tea and cakes, and I discovered that Ariane had a subtle but definite sense of humour and that many of my attitudes to portrait shooting were shared by her.

Click on thumbnails below to view slideshow.