Meet a Spreader - Lutz Caeser

Lutz (23) is Spreadshirt’s photographer. He takes images of models, shirts, models in shirts - and once in a while broken coffee-machines for the internal blog..read what he as a Wessi thinks about East Germany and what he plans to do in future.

What do you like about your job?
I am lucky to like my work. Because I am curious of life, and I am curious of people especially. Taking images, rendering and changing images to create a certain mood: that is what I enjoy.

What don’t you like about our job?
Office work has a sad tendency to multiply. As it is now, I have to write JIRA tickets for even the most minute tasks I ask of colleagues.

What do you do to make your models feel comfortable?
That can be tough. I have to do my share of clowning to be sure. And when you don’t know people it is especially hard. For laFraise, I have come to actually go and see people at their own home, so they feel more, well, at home.

Do you have professional goals?
I want to find my own studio, possibly here in Leipzig Plagwitz and portray yet more people.

What should a good photographer be like?
I don’t know. But I care most for that one moment when people drop their mask, when their is no ‚cheese’-saying on my part. To capture them off guard, revealing their true self with a little gesture, tic or mania, is the real thing. This sometimes requires following people for quite some time. Also, this cannot be done at work really, it is a private ambition.

What is your favorite camera?
Leica M8

Is there someone whose work you adore?

I kinda like what Erwin Olaf does.

You come from Brilon in Westphalia. What do you think of that?
I really grew up in Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr area, which is somewhat similar to East Germany as there is a lot of unemployment (it is the former coal mining region). Luckily my parents moved to Brilon in the Sauerland which is as much coutryside as it gets. And growing up, I kept my longing for the big city. Longing is important in adolescence.

Brilon, sounds like some plastic material from GDR times. The city itself?
The city itself? Pretty much old people with a liberal sprinkling of very nasty Albanian Mafia types. Small-town Westphalia, that says it all. People there are a little, well, moody.

Is that why you came to Leipzig?
After civil service I worked at a little portraiture photoshop in Cologne. That was when I discovered photography is the thing for me. I spent some time in Bielefeld at a photographic academy and then got to know about Spreadshirt via Kolja, a school pal of mine.

Do you like it here?
Yeah, Leipzig is great and could be my home base for a while. My father’s family comes from near-by Guben, so there is an old connection to Saxony. East Germany is tough in terms of pay, but there is also lots of cheap studio space and ridiculous rents. And peope here are easier to engage with.

Where will you be ten years from now?
At the lobby of a beauty surgeon, photographing people with strange noses. Really, I would like to explore the foul side of stars and the rich. But God knows..

What was the most uncommon event of your life?
Not suitable for Spreadshirt PR I am afraid But wait, recently, I was at an art exhibition and this really weird installation struck me. Someone had calculated his remaining life span (on average it is something like 78 years), and for each day that was left to him, he had put up a post-it note on the wall. Now, everyday in the evening, he removes one post-it from the wall. That was an impressive amount of post-its, but come to think of it it wasn’t that much really. Our life goes by too fast.

Let me get you some post-its from accounting to prolong your life then;)…what music do you like?
minimal and electro

What is your favorite spot on the internet?
Lutzcaesar.de, although it is not active just yet.

What is your favorite book??
Mecki in Cockaigne

Thanks for your time..?Who shall be next?
Henning Kruthaup