Spyros Rennt captures connection and tenderness among Berlin’s queer youth

Spy­ros Ren­nt first moved to Berlin in 2011. He had grown up in Athens, then moved to San Fran­cis­co and Munich before set­tling on the Ger­man cap­i­tal. In a city of cheap rent, a vibrant cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty, and by-most-accounts the best LGBTQ+ nightlife in the world, he soon picked up a cam­era and start­ed cap­tur­ing the world around him.

“I found myself in Berlin at kind of a dead end,” he recalls. ​“I was sur­round­ed by inter­est­ing peo­ple and going out a lot – so I shy­ly start­ed to doc­u­ment the things around me. I’m a queer per­son and I was going out a lot and had my cam­era with me, so it was a nat­ur­al thing.”

As one thing led to anoth­er, and before long, Ren­nt found that he’d become some­thing of an in-demand chron­i­cler of the city’s queer nightlife. He’d shoot at par­ties organ­ised by those in the scene, while also tak­ing por­traits of his friends at the pres, the afters, and beyond the all-night long sessions.

His lat­est pho­to­book, Inter­twined, focus­es on his work made in the post-pan­dem­ic years, most­ly between 2021 and 2024. While nightlife fea­tures among its pages, and the char­ac­ters fea­tured are most­ly drawn from his cir­cle of friends and the city’s queer par­ty scene, the pho­tographs turn the focus away from the thump­ing kick­drums of the dancefloor. 

• Read next: Sur­re­al shots of every­day life in Berlin

Inter­twined makes for a ten­der por­trait of LGBTQ+ inti­ma­cy. From gen­tle embraces and ten­der kiss­es to qui­eter por­traits tak­en inside bed­rooms, the pho­tographs explore con­nec­tion and romance that tran­scends the imme­di­ate­ly lust­ful. ​“My work used to be more sex­u­al,” he explains. ​“I wouldn’t say that I’m mov­ing away from that, but I think that I’m more drawn to a more poet­ic approach – with this book is more of a moody, melan­cholic vibe and I’m fas­ci­nat­ed by the doc­u­men­ta­tion of rela­tion­ships and closeness.”

That con­nec­tion man­i­fests in phys­i­cal and more abstract sens­es in the pho­tographs. Touch is a recur­ring motif, but equal­ly pow­er­ful are the soft pos­es and into-the-lens stares. ​“The name Inter­twined is a ref­er­ence to people’s des­tinies being bound togeth­er, in the way that the queer cho­sen fam­i­ly works,” Ren­nt explains. ​“When I shoot bod­ies, I like the way that they come togeth­er and cre­ate shapes and forms that become one.”

Yet under­ly­ing through­out the pic­tures is a sense of nos­tal­gic long­ing and change. The Berlin of cheap rent and rad­i­cal liv­ing has been erod­ed in recent times, as infla­tion has seen its demo­graph­ics and lifestyles shift. In 2023 The Guardian report­ed that medi­an ask­ing rents had jumped by 21.2%.

“Peo­ple still go out, and still go hard,” Ren­nt says. ​“But over­all, things are get­ting a bit more basic. Berlin is no longer a city of mis­fits, and the artists who can work one bar job two days a week and still get by – this is not sus­tain­able any­more. So you’ve got to have a job and lead a nine-to-five lifestyle, and if you lead a nine-to-five lifestyle, you’re prob­a­bly not going to be a freak.”

• Read next: The rave sal­vaging toi­lets for London’s queers

For Ren­nt, the pic­tures cap­ture a time, a place, and a scene that looks unlike­ly to stick around for­ev­er. ​“I’m very con­nect­ed to Inter­twined, because the images are of peo­ple who are close to me,” he explains. ​“It’s also a reflec­tion of my envi­ron­ment – the peo­ple who inspire me and peo­ple I look up to, so it’s dear to me.”

Inter­twined by Spy­ros Ren­nt is self-pub­lished. Pur­chase a copy from his offi­cial website.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s dig­i­tal edi­tor. Fol­low him on Bluesky.

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