Darius Ramazani : people images for ALLIANZ, DP LUXEMBURG campaign, California Dreamin in VW MAGAZINE, fashion by FELIX W. and South Africa project in GOLDEN ARROW MAG including an exhibition

Darius Ramazani is a Berlin based photographer & director with a focus on portrait, people, advertising and social campaigning.

"Our gaze falls on everything. For a nanosecond, at least. But it lingers on the extraordinary. On the beautiful and the genuine. Here it rests, benevolently. We desire beauty, and the genuine reflects our world. Both fascinate us. With Darius, one of the two always emerges: beauty or authenticity. Sometimes both coincide. But every single one of his pictures possesses a unique fascination that you cannot escape.

All the pictures I commissioned from Darius, whether they were created privately or for others, and which we later discussed, have this special aura. In fact, I saw his first photos before I even knew him. They were portraits of a friend, the artist duo 2Flügel. I was completely captivated by how someone could make the deep love between these two people visible. I didn't know that was even possible. That's just one example among many.

Or this: Once we were together in Salzburg during a lengthy, A difficult, complex photo shoot. During a break from a walk, we both took photos of the same house with our phones. My picture shows a house. Darius's picture shows an idea, a vision, a story, a truly special moment, architecture. All in one snapshot taken with a phone. How on earth is that possible? I've noticed that people who can create exceptional quality in their work always have special sources of inspiration. Often, they've endured great suffering, experienced incredible rescues, or encountered profound love in their lives. With Darius, many of these things come together again.

Darius is a native of the USA; his mother was German, and his father is Persian. A complex mix or a precious gift? Probably both. He spent wonderful childhood years in Iran, which profoundly shaped him. Hospitality was the key word there. You can still feel it today: In all his productions, he pays close attention to everyone's well-being—intense and joyful introductions, pleasant locations, good catering—in short, genuine hospitality. Warm hospitality in the midst of everyday life, in the midst of work. A Persian heritage from his childhood.

In reality, however, after his childhood as a migrant and teenager in Germany, he experienced exclusion and a lack of opportunities in the confines of a small Swabian village. Things could have gone very wrong, but then a kind of salvation occurred, one that Darius granted himself, and which he sometimes recounts when you catch a glimpse of him: a high school class trip to Poland, Krakow and Warsaw, in 1988, the pre-reunification era. Everything is foreign. Big cities. Wide, but run-down, grand boulevards, people from a different system who celebrate differently, look differently, are different.

They encounter almost-adult teenagers from the West, who sense the beginning of a new chapter in their own lives, exhilarated by their own freedom, which is almost tangible – in a country where nothing is free, but where everything yearns for it and is ready for it. A truly eccentric atmosphere, unlike anything else.

Darius begins to see all of this through the camera he fortunately brought along and to capture it in the moment.The real and the beautiful. Gray boulevards and beautiful girls. That's precisely what saves him and frees him from the confines of his Swabian village: Life is special. Every moment holds meaning. It holds authenticity. You have to make it visible so we notice it and celebrate it. Notice how blessed we are. Because we are alive. The rest is history. A young man captures the beauty and authenticity of people, stories, and ideas with his camera. For record covers and in youth magazines. Later in portraits and major campaigns. First in Stuttgart, then in Berlin. He travels the world, meets many people: stars and starlets, politicians and business leaders, the sick and the homeless. He creates the most powerful stories about beauty and suffering. He wins many awards.

But throughout all these years, his work remains what it has always been: a visual exclamation mark under the fact that life can be beautiful and real, precious and unique, if we only allow ourselves to live in the moment. With what other "I can't say whether photographers can achieve this effect now."

This text is by Magdalena Schmitt, a friend and client of Darius Ramazani, formerly a creative director, now a literary and content agent. Here she tells you about her experience of Darius's work.