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Just

Just — Writer at work on a Berlin rooftop
Just — Letters from Aleppo: rebel fighters in position, Syria, 2012
Just — Graffiti writers on a Berlin rooftop at night
Just — Letters from Aleppo: refugee camp, Syria, 2012
Just — Berlin U-Bahn, tagged train in depot
Just — Checkpoint, Kurdistan Region, Iraq, 2014
Just — ABOVE JUST mural, Berlin
Just — Letters from Aleppo: children in Aleppo, Syria, 2012
Just — Görlitzer Park, Berlin Kreuzberg, aerial view
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Just — Writer at work on a Berlin rooftop

Just is a Berlin-based artist, photographer and photojournalist. His photographic work is a journey. He studied photography in Scotland where he also worked as a picture framer while taking photos of the punk and squatter scenes that he was part of. One scene led to another, and Just then went on to focus on the graffiti and street art cultures.

American photojournalist Martha Cooper said: "Just's breathtaking photos are dramatic documents of daring graffiti artists in action. Through them you can vicariously experience the danger and thrills of rooftop writing."

His photos detail finished works as well as practice, and getting into the intimacy of a certain scene is part of Just's unique art process. His images have been taken in Berlin and various places such as Hamburg, the Ruhr area, Poland, New York, Tel Aviv and Bangkok.

Letters from Aleppo — Syria, December 2012

The streets he had documented led him to the ones of Aleppo. In the same way that he was close to the street artists whose work and practice he was capturing, he joined the lives of the people he met in the streets of the Syrian city.

Letters from Aleppo, curated by Open Walls Gallery, opened at Stattbad Berlin on the 15th of February 2013. The exhibition was a three-dimensional narrative installation: a diary reporting and relating a life experience of being immersed into another reality and into people's lives. The installation displayed letters relating this experience as well as photos illustrating them and a soundscape recorded by Thomas Rassloff, which assisted in bringing the viewer in context.

Both the photos taken in Syria in December 2012 and the letters Just wrote during his stay there were displayed on large panels to confront the viewer with the written words, as much as with the images. They describe a new daily life that temporarily became his, being equally overwhelming. The opening of the exhibition coincided with the publication of those stories in Reportagen, a major Swiss reportage magazine.

Aleppo — Devastated street, December 2012 Aleppo — Rebel fighters, 2012 Aleppo — Man looking out of a window onto the frontline, 2012 Aleppo — Children, 2012 Aleppo — Shepherd and boy, outskirts, 2012 Aleppo — Loading convoy in the ruins, 2012 Aleppo — Woman in refugee camp, 2012 Aleppo — Fighters in convoy, 2012

Letters from Aleppo — Stattbad Berlin, 15.02 – 02.03.2013. Curated by Open Walls Gallery. Published in Reportagen magazine (Switzerland).

Berlin — Rooftops, Trains & Street Art

Before Syria, Just spent years embedded in Berlin's graffiti underground — documenting writers on rooftops, in train depots, and across the city's rapidly changing urban landscape. His images capture the adrenaline, danger, and poetry of illicit artistic actions performed at heights and in hidden places.

Berlin — Rooftop view by night Berlin — Writer at work on a rooftop Berlin — Tagged U-Bahn train in depot Berlin — Catch Me If You Can: Polizei and graffiti Berlin — ABOVE JUST mural Berlin — Görlitzer Park, Kreuzberg, aerial view

Inside Iraq — Kurdistan, June 2014

In June 2014, Just documented five days inside Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), continuing his commitment to frontline photojournalism in conflict zones.

Iraq — Peshmerga soldiers on tank, 2014 Iraq — Armed checkpoint, Kurdistan, 2014

Photojournalism & Field Work

Beyond graffiti documentation, Just has worked as a photojournalist in conflict zones and on humanitarian assignments, collaborating with international news agencies including Snapshot-Photography, SZ-Foto, Ullstein and Imago. He has been a member of the German Federation of Journalists (DJV & IFJ) since 2008.

  • 2023 · One Whaling Ship Down · Frontline photo report from Iceland's fin-whale season with Hard To Port
  • 2014 · Gaza · Photoessay from assignments during the Gaza conflict
  • 2014 · Inside Iraq · Five days in Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
  • 2012 · Inside Syria: Letters from Aleppo · Published in Reportagen magazine (Switzerland)
  • Sea-Watch 3 · Field Media Coordinator — visual storytelling and communications aboard the rescue vessel

Exhibitions

Solo

  • 2013 · Letters from Aleppo · Stattbad Berlin · curated by OPEN WALLS Gallery
  • 2009 · Just Taking Pictures · ATM Gallery · Berlin Mitte (first solo show, part of Wallbreakers Festival by Modart)

Group & Curatorial

  • 2019 · Berlin: Writing Graffiti 1983–2019 · ca. 400 photographs documenting Berlin graffiti history · invited photographer
  • 2017 · Radius (Project M/11) · Urban Nation · Berlin · co-curator with C100 & Urbanshit, invited by Yasha Young
  • 2013 · Dissidents · OPEN WALLS Gallery · Berlin
  • 2009 · ARTotale · Lüneburg

Publications & Community

  • Published in numerous books, magazines and international media
  • Partner agencies: Snapshot-Photography, SZ-Foto, Ullstein, Imago
  • Founded Freundeskreis Street-Art Berlin (2006) — the first German-language urban art blog
  • Images on Corbis Images / Getty as editorial photographer

Exhibitions

Just · Letters from Aleppo

Just · Letters from Aleppo

February 15th – March 2nd, 2013