The Faces of beyond tellerrand

The faces of beyond tellerrand … who is that? Surely it is everyone who is part of beyond tellerrand and/or the events when they take place. My always has been to put anyone on the same level: speakers, delegates, the team and myself. No one is better or worth less and people in the audience are equally smart as anyone on stage. So, when I am writing about the “faces of beyond tellerrand” here, I am speaking about the faces on stage this time and my dear friend Norman Posselt, who is part of what I do for many years now.

I remember one year – and I have forgotten when exactly, but it must have been around 2013 or 2014 – I visited my friend Jürgen Siebert in his office. Back then he was still working for Monotype and responsible for Typo Berlin also. We exchanged about idea and speakers we had seen and much more. In his office he had large portraits of the speakers who spoke at Typo Berlin and I really loved that those where hanging all over the place.

At some point later, I told Norman about this and even though he wasn’t the one who was shooting those portrait, he was kind of the director of photography, if I got that right and was directing which kind of photos were needed and who of the photographer team took which (I hope I remember that correctly). Anyways, when I told Norman about how much I liked this idea, he said, why he shouldn’t do this for beyond tellerrand. Certainly I was directly in love with this idea, even though I have no dedicated office space, where I’d be able to hang all those portraits to my walls (one day … one day!).

Since then, Norman picks up each speaker right after they are done with their talk into his little popup studio and takes a portrait of them. What I did not recognise at the beginning is the side effect that it has and how some of the speakers are still in their tunnel and others are already back to “normal” mode (maybe planned by Norman?).

Portraits of Hamburg 2022 – this time in colour. You See Michael Trautmann, Doro Ottermann, Sharon Steed and Stefan Sagmeister (ltr).

Since Norman started this, he played around with different setups and backgrounds, but always tries to keep the setup minimal to not bring too much gear with him, but also to make use of the often small space that I am able to provide for this backstage.

Here is an excerpt of what Norman has created so far …

A choice of portraits from Berlin 2022 – ltr: dina Amin, David Dylan Thomas and Nadieh Bremer.

Düsseldorf 2023 portraits with Gemma O’Brien, Thomas Thwaites and Cassie Evans (ltr)

2021 in Düsseldorf, first one after the pandemic. Portraits of Molly Watt, Titus Dittmann and Ulrike Rausch (ltr).

The last Düsseldorf edition before the pandemic stopped me from running them for 2,5 years. Portraits of David Carson, Red Hong Yi and Brendan Dawes (ltr).

As you can see they are always slightly different and also never in a way so that Norman tells anyone how to sit or look. Some are more joking with the camera, others are more serious. I love this as part of my book of memories. This is so wonderful, especially if you see them over a period of time. I wish Norman would have been aboard from first on. But he already is taking these since 2018 now. And as said earlier: one day I gonna print them out in big format and have them in my studio – well, as soon, as I have my own space again ;)

You can find the complete set of portraits Norman shot in our photo gallery.

Thanks so much to you, dear Norman for being part of the family and for taking those portraits!