BLN//MRTHN2026

For a few days, Berlin runs on a different rhythm. The streets fill with runners, crews, conversations and anticipation, long before the starting line comes into view. I spent those days with my camera, looking for the moments that happen around the race - the ones that show the people behind the numbers and the shared energy that makes the Berlin Marathon what it is.

The shake-out run with Run Pack Berlin and Brooks on Thursday night felt like a first glimpse of what was about to happen. It was already dark when we started, but there were people everywhere - runners, photographers, friends, strangers. The atmosphere was relaxed, energetic and very Berlin. We ran past the Brandenburg Gate, with the Fernsehturm visible in the distance, while the streets around us were still full of traffic and everyday city life. I kept photographing along the way, looking for those small moments where the group became more than just a group of runners. A glance, a conversation, the rhythm of people moving through the city together. For me, that is what photography is often about: not just documenting where we are, but capturing what it feels like to be part of something. The run was less about the distance and more about getting into the rhythm of the days ahead.

The new Run Pack race outfits added another layer to that feeling of being part of a crew. Different people, different styles, but a shared visual language that made the group recognizable without feeling too uniform. I photographed the outfits the same way I photograph the runs - looking at how they move, how people wear them, and how they become part of the atmosphere around them. It is less about the clothes themselves and more about what happens when everyone shows up in the same place with their own version of the same idea. That collective energy is always what I want to keep in the frame.

By race day, Berlin felt completely switched on. The weather was almost perfect, and from the first few kilometres there was this feeling of being fully locked into the run - focused, present, and moving with thousands of other people. I photographed whenever I could, trying to catch the details between the big moments: runners settling into their pace, friends looking for each other in the crowd, volunteers, spectators, streets turning into one long moving line. There was a lot of noise, but also a kind of shared concentration that made the city feel unusually connected. Running through Berlin like that, the individual experience constantly overlaps with the collective one. That is what keeps me coming back with a camera: the race gives you a reason to be there, but the people are what make the pictures. In the end, I am less interested in documenting a finish time than in capturing what it looked and felt like when all of us were moving through the city together.