Helga Paris, whose photos captured East Berlin life, dies at 85
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The photographer Helga Paris, who grew up in the former East Berlin and became known for vividly capturing everyday life in the Soviet zone, has died at the age of 85.
Paris died on Monday at her flat in the German capital, her daughter told dpa on Tuesday.
Paris, who was born in 1938 in what is now the Polish town of Goleniów, grew up in Zossen near Berlin. She studied fashion design and initially worked as a graphic designer before teaching herself photography in the 1960s.
She found inspiration in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood, where she moved in 1966 with her then husband, the painter Ronald Paris, and where their two children grew up.
The moody, sometimes melancholy, works she created in Berlin were strongly influenced by Paris' surroundings. At the time, the Prenzlauer Berg district was still characterized by working-class families.
Photographs of women employed at a clothing factory, men drinking at their local pub, and lonely figures walking along empty Berlin streets typified her work. Train stations were also a frequent subject for her lens.
Paris also travelled outside of Berlin, including to Transylvania, Georgia and the German city of Halle. Paris said no matter where she was, she tried to photograph everything "like a foreign city in a foreign country."
Paris was a member of the Berlin's Akademie der Künste arts academy since 1996. She left her archive of almost 230,000 negatives and around 6,300 films to the art institution.
