Freedom of Movement 8 - Koblenz.

Selena and Frank, photographed at Deutsches Eck, Koblenz.

I’ve known Selena for long enough that I don’t know how I know her - she grew up in my part of Oxford, and we always seemed to have a lot of mutual friends.
Frank is Selena’s husband. She would probably say the same about him - that they’ve known each other for so long that they don’t quite know how (in fact when I asked them, they had to discuss how they actually met). Frank is a native of Ransbach - Baumbach, just outside Koblenz, and grew up just round the corner from the home he and Selena now share.

They seem incredibly at ease and comfortable with one another and, yet, gently and lovingly, continue their respective countries’ traditions of taking the Mickey out of one another.

It struck me that this aspect of their relationship - a mature and jovial rivalry that nevertheless acknowledged their interdependance - was a pretty good metaphor for the EU as a whole. Definitely different individuals, but stronger together.

For the portrait I decided to shoot at the Deutsches Eck - the confluence of the rivers Mosel and Rhine, and from which Koblenz took its name in Roman times. Confluence. The joining of two roads. It seemed appropriate, obvious, perhaps, to celebrate freedom and unity with the joining of two great rivers.