Fotografin, Berlin
Mira Kestner
Documentary photography made at the hours the city does not perform.
Plate 00. Ringbahn, southbound, 04:12. Silver gelatin, 2023.
Selected plates
Seven, out of nine years. Click a plate to see it whole.
Ringbahn
2023 to 2024
The Ringbahn closes its circle in sixty two minutes.
I rode it forty one times last winter and photographed on nine.
- Circuit
- 62 min
- Stations
- 27
- Frames kept
- 6 of 214
- Film
- HP5 Plus, pushed to 1600
Six frames
The ones I kept. One circuit, in order, November to February.
Statement
I photograph Berlin at the hours it does not perform.
Night shifts, empty platforms, the twenty minutes of light a courtyard gets in February.
No set ups, no flash, no permission asked twice.
Born 1988 in Halle. In Berlin since 2011. Self taught, which took longer and was cheaper.
I work in black and white because colour tells you what to look at first, and I would rather you decided.
- 2025
- Ringbahn. Kunstraum Nordring, Berlin. Solo.
- 2024
- Neue Dokumente. Halle 9, Leipzig. Group.
- 2023
- Nachtschicht. Galerie Weissensee Ost, Berlin. Solo.
- 2022
- Shortlist, Prize for Documentary Photography, Kassel.
- 2021
- Hinterhoefe. Staedtische Galerie Cottbus. Group.
- 2019
- First plates published. Streuner, issue 04.
Commissions
Rates are what I charge, not what I open with.
- 01
Editorial
Portraits, reportage, one subject, one afternoon. I shoot film and scan. Turnaround is eight working days.
950 EUR / day
- 02
Documentary
Long form. A shift, a season, a building coming down. Minimum two weeks, because less than that is tourism.
from 4,200 EUR / week
- 03
Prints
Silver gelatin, made by hand, signed and numbered on the verso. Allow four weeks.
from 480 EUR
Journal
Written down because I will not remember it otherwise.
14 February 2026
Bought back a box of my own negatives from 2019. Half of them are courtyards. None of them are good, and I am keeping all of them.
3 January 2026
Rode the Ringbahn twice on New Year's morning. Confetti frozen into the platform edge at Neukoelln. Did not raise the camera.
21 November 2025
The darkroom at Labor 12 is being sold. Nine of us have made an offer. We are photographers, so the offer is late and badly written.
Contact
post@mirakestner.de- Studio
- Ringbahnstrasse 4, Hof II, 12099 Berlin
- Editorial representation
- Studio Nordring, Berlin. anfrage@studio-nordring.de
- Press
- Full CV and high resolution plates on request.
Prints are made by hand at Labor 12, Kreuzberg. Nothing here is inkjet. Allow four weeks and one delay.