Thousands flock to Berlin each year for the nightlife. But while the kind of people who party in Germany’s capital says a lot about the club scene, so, too, do the items they leave behind, as one photographer found out.
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
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Ragnar Schmuck is one of Berlin's leading lights when it comes to photography, and his portfolio includes a diverse range of images. From dynamic sports shots for soccer publication 11 Freunde to celebrity faces for the likes of Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan; cutting edge cityscapes for Architectural Digest to the heavyweights of the music world for De:Bug and Intro.
But his latest assignment for electronic music publication Groove was something different. Commissioned by the magazine's editor, Heiko Hoffmann, Ragnar was sent to seven of the most popular clubbing venues in Berlin – //:about blank, Berghain, Horst Kreuzberg, Kater Holzig, Wilde Renate, Weekend and Watergate - to create a photo series documenting lost property.
The series, 'Lost in Clubs', offers a snapshot not only of the city's key venues, but also aims to quirkily profile clubbers in Germany's capital by taking a look at some of the items they forget to take home with them.
Ragnar Schmuck spoke to DW about the project and kindly allowed us to publish all seven images from the series in the picture gallery below.
DW: So what were the most surprising pieces of lost property you found?
Ragnar Schmuck: 'Lost in Clubs'
A look at some of the (sometimes bizarre) items of lost property found in seven of Berlin's most popular clubs.
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
Forgotten anything?
visitBerlin, the city's main tourism office, estimates that overnight stays in 2012 topped 20 million. With such colossal numbers of people flocking to Berlin, many of whom come here to sample the world-famous nightlife, clubs are swamped with both visitors and locals. Photographer Ragnar Schmuck recently visited seven key venues to see what some of the guests forgot to take home with them.
Image: Berlin Music Week
Salon zur wilden Renate
One of Berlin's most popular weekend venues, Salon zur wilden Renate (known locally simply as Renate) is a sprawling, ramshackle old building featuring countless dancefloors, rooms, passages and nooks and crannies. A perfect place, in fact, to lose all of your personal posessions. While this collection of lost property is interesting, it does raise the question: "Who takes a book to a club?"
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
Watergate
Fans of techno regularly flock to Watergate on the banks of the River Spree, a venue regularly featured in top ten lists of best clubs in the world. All-night techno parties - or in Watergate's case, all-weekend techno parties - are always a good opportunity for amusing people watching. Seeing the girl who staggered home minus a shoe would certainly have been worth the entry price.
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
Weekend
Weekend club, just off Alexander Platz in the heart of the city, is arguably most famous for the spectacular views afforded by its open-air rooftop bar, a perfect spot to see the sun come up over Berlin after hours of hardcore clubbing. Inside, it's suitably dark and atmospheric with plenty of gloomy corners to forget your stuff - as evidenced by the girl who managed to lose her bra.
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
Berghain
The granddaddy of Berlin techno clubs, Berghain - so named because the club straddles the districts of Keruzberg and Friedrichshain - is arguably a main reason clubbers flock to Berlin by the thousands. Its all-weekend parties, line-up of big name DJs and anything goes attitude are all major draws. Just don't forget to bring your sunglasses. Or, it seems, your pliers.
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
Horst Kreuzberg
Horst Kreuzberg, located on Hallesches Ufer in Kreuzberg, has only recently - and somewhat mysteriously - bitten the dust. In its heyday, it was one of the city's most popular venues for electronic music. While admittedly the lost property found here is standard fare, hopefully the clubbing essentials of credit card, sunglasses and shoes didn't all belong to the same person.
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
Kater Holzig
A sprawling, labyrinthine indoor venue boasting a huge outdoor area backing onto the River Spree, Kater Holzig - particularly in summer - is the successor to the now defunct Bar 25 and is run by many of the legendary club's same people. But be careful if you do make it there; as this picture shows, the club seems to inspire people to lose their wallets.
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
://about blank
A relative newcomer to the Berlin club landscape, ://about blank has quickly established itself as one of the most popular places in town. Its massive popularity neatly reflected in this picture, the most diverse selection of club lost property. Books, combs, wallets, watches...they're all here. And at least two clubbers liked the place so much they turned in their passports and decided to stay.
Image: Ragnar Schmuck
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Ragnar Schmuck: Porsche car keys, ballet shoes…and pliers!
And which items turned up the most often?
Probably jumpers followed by keys, glasses and wallets.
From the items that were left behind, what did you learn about Berlin clubbers?
I think it's a sign of a great party that you forget everything around you and can't remember anything later. But of course you learn something about the individuals. From people's ID cards or passports, for example, you see just how international the Berlin club scene is. And then the items also say something about personal taste.
So what kind of concept did you have in mind when you approached the photoshoot?
One constant element was to shoot everything from the same perspective in the corner of the club so that there is a uniformity to the series. But that's also because the corners of a room are usually where things are found. I also tried to make each venue recognizable to the people who regularly go there and already know what the club looks like. The pictures were also very carefully staged and lit as I didn't want it to look like documentary photography.
What was your working schedule like? Did you have to start work at 7am when the party was over?
Photograper Ragnar SchmuckImage: Ragnar Schmuck
No, actually I was very surprised to find out just how carefully clubs look after lost property, so it wasn't a problem to set up the shootings through the day. That's maybe something else people don’t realize; people are working behind the scenes in clubs all the time.
And as far as bizarre lost property is concerned, what is the craziest club in Berlin?
Well, that's something I think the viewer should decide for themselves. It’s precisely why I made the pictures in the first place.
