I was working in eastern Germany earlier this week. A short drive from Berlin, Märkisch-Oderland is part of Brandenburg state, sitting on the Oder river within swimming distance of Poland.

Getting out of Berlin and heading to the former East was a great chance to meet new people and it reiterated to me that the whole of this country does not live in big cities and in fact, does not speak English. I've been to a lot of places in the world where I don't speak the language (most places in the world, most of the places I've been). I've always lived with the idea that most communication isn't about language and I've always (usually - insert moment in Warsaw here) gotten by. Taking language out of the equation has often helped rather than hindered my experience making portraits. Instead of telling someone what to do while making small talk it just becomes about me, the subject, my camera and how we all dance together to record the moment. And it often leads to wonderful home cooked meals of foods I can't identify (oh, that's what you call octopus in Croatian). But meeting these people in eastern Germany who had important things to say, who wanted to convey their message, made me realize how lame it is that I can't speak the language in my own "home." You can always get by with English but until you can talk to a grandmother in the countryside (any countryside), you're never going to fully integrate. So it's back to German class for me.