Recalcitrance, Berlin

Vishniac’s most accomplished photographs of Berlin were often taken in his own neighborhood, in the Wilmersdorf district that was home to a large number of prosperous Russian Jewish expatriates. This image was taken from the foyer of a building that housed the Lindenbad, a Russian bathhouse near the family’s apartment. Vishniac often positioned himself in doorways or archways, a practice that he continued throughout his career, navigating the new cities he traveled to and inhabited by watching street life from a removed distance and capturing people, as they passed by, who were often unaware of the presence of the camera.