Frauke Ahrend Photography

What do you offer?

I'm a wedding photographer based in Germany, capturing moments the way they actually happen: not posed, not staged, real and a little messy. My style is documentary and emotional, with an eye for quiet glances, laughter that wasn't planned, and the in-between moments most people forget to look for.

Why do you want to work with the LGBTQ+ community?

What I love most about photographing queer couples is that they often just do what feels right to them, rather than following a script. The wedding industry wasn't created for them, so they make up their own rules about what a wedding even is. I think that's amazing to witness and document. I want the couples I work with to feel completely free in front of my camera to be themselves, without ever having to justify themselves or explain things to me first. I want to document that honesty, exactly as it is.💛

The LGBTQ+ community is the most wholesome community I know, and as a queer person myself working in the wedding industry, I know how hard it can be to find vendors who truly understand that. That's why I think a queer European network like this is such a great idea. It makes it so much easier for queer couples to find vendors who are actually a good fit for their wedding.

Allyship

I regularly participate in demonstrations and protests for LGBTQ+ rights. I’m also constantly working to improve my own language use and understanding, and I actively engage in conversations with people around me about language, queerness, and their significance, especially with people who may not have given these topics much thought yet. I try to actively support queer artists and service providers by seeking them out specifically and choosing to collaborate with them whenever possible.

Building a diverse portfolio has been a challenge, especially because many of the queer couples I’ve photographed haven’t given me permission to share their photos publicly, and real weddings will always look different from styled shoots. Given the increasingly hostile political climate, I understand why couples are hesitant to be visible in public, but that’s exactly why it’s so important to create authentic queer representation in the wedding industry!

Nevertheless, I’m actively working to make my portfolio more diverse in the future. I use gender-neutral language throughout my business and am working to make my visual language more gender-neutral as well, while offering the couples I work with ideas and inspiration for unconventional weddings and ceremonies. I am actively working to change this in the future so that my portfolio better reflects the work I’m already doing.