Editor’s Note: When I first saw Michael Steffen’s photographs, I didn’t think of documentation or fundraising. I thought of trust. I thought: someone was present here, not just with a camera, but with time, with openness. These portraits don’t just depict people but rather reflect relationships. There is warmth in these images, and a sense of authenticity that doesn’t happen by accident.
OneSec: Michael, your photographs are currently on display at the European Humanitarian Forum 2025. They’re not loud images, they don’t cry out. But they do hold your gaze. How did the exhibition come about, and how did you decide which photos to show?
Michael Steffen: Thank you. That means a lot that they hold your gaze. The exhibition came about through a general call for submissions. I curated twelve photographs I had taken during my work with Malteser International in South Sudan to submit. I looked for images that could stand on their own and speak to one another. They don’t tell a full story. They’re fragments – carefully chosen ones.
They began as project documentation, not for display. But I’ve always approached photography as storytelling with responsibility. And some images felt different – like the people had entrusted me with something. That trust stayed with me.
OneSec: That trust is visible. There’s no performative posing – just presence. How do you build those kinds of connections, also in shorter timeframes?
Michael Steffen: It usually begins with something other than the camera. I never just walk into a setting and start shooting. Often, I’m there with local colleagues – people from the communities themselves, who speak the languages and know the people. They are the driving force behind harmony, strong relationships, and trust. We spend time explaining why we’re there, listening, sometimes sharing a meal or a walk. When the camera does come out, it’s after I’ve been allowed in, so to speak. I am deeply grateful to my colleagues and the communities in South Sudan for making it possible for me to be part of their communities, at least for a while.
I also stay as long as possible. Hours, if I can. I want people to forget the camera. I try to blend in as a guest or friend and become almost invisible as a photographer – not to hide, but to let the situation unfold naturally. That presence, combined with restraint, is what makes the resulting image feel honest. It allows relationships to come through, and that, I believe, is what helps preserve dignity.
“I want to share space, not take it.”
OneSec: You mentioned “dignity.” What does it mean for you when you’re behind the lens?
Michael Steffen: For me, dignity means resisting the urge to define others. It means showing people as agents, not objects. I don’t want to reduce anyone to “a beneficiary” – and I don’t want the photo to do that either. Dignity in a photo is about more than smiling faces or respectful distance. It’s about intention. Does the image affirm someone’s humanity – or take something from it?
This is especially important in contexts shaped by colonization or conflict. The camera has often served as a tool of objectification – reducing people to symbols of suffering or neediness, stripped of voice and complexity. That legacy also lingers in how people react to being photographed – and in how audiences read images. I want to do the opposite.
I want to share space, not take it. That means letting the person influence how the image is made – where they want to sit, how they wish to be seen, whether they want to be photographed at all. That co-authorship changes everything. It makes the image mutual.
OneSec: When you talk about resisting the urge to define others, it sounds like a lot of deep thinking has gone into your approach. Where does that come from?
Michael Steffen: It’s a mix of experience and long conversations I’ve had with others, and some of it comes from my academic background. I wrote my master’s thesis on protest photography and how power and perception are embedded in the images we produce and consume. One of the things I explored was the concept of “coloniality of power” – how old hierarchies live on, not just in systems but in mindsets, in the way we look and frame others. Even if colonization is officially over, many of the ways we’ve learned to see the world are still filtered through that history. A camera, in that sense, doesn’t just show what’s in front of it. If we are not careful, it can reinforce those old patterns. I believe it can be challenged through reflection and consciousness of “self and other”. Perhaps, there lies the possibility to soften historical continuities.
“If I’m just there to confirm a narrative, I’m not really seeing.”
OneSec: Is that why you speak of photography as a form of listening?
Michael Steffen: Exactly. If I’m just there to confirm a narrative, I’m not really seeing. If I go in with the mindset of listening to my surroundings, noticing, observing and becoming part of this moment in time, I‘m opening space for images/scenes to organically unfold, filled with contradiction, silence, self-definition.
In my thesis, which by the way was informally titled “Please listen”, I used a method called the “Icon Lab” – a way of reading photographs with others, focusing not just on what’s visible but on what’s at stake. Whose voice? Whose gaze? Whose frame?
OneSec: Do you think there’s a place for photography in humanitarian storytelling that resists extraction – that doesn’t “use” the image?
Michael Steffen: I hope so. That’s the kind of photography I try to practice. I don’t want to create emotional clickbait. I want to create moments of pause – images that invite people to lean in. And just as important as the image itself, for me, are the accompanying texts. Some are direct quotes, others are my personal impressions I noted down – but all of them give the viewer a sense of context and help communicate what the image alone might leave unsaid. The text and image together carry the message. Maybe photography can be a form of listening. That’s what I aspire to: to let the lens listen before it captures.
OneSec: Last question – if someone stands in front of your photos at the EHF, what would you hope they feel?
Michael Steffen: Not pity. Not guilt. Maybe curiosity. Maybe respect. And hopefully, they feel seen – not just the person in the photo, but themselves, reflected in their reaction. That’s where dignity begins: in mutual recognition. And in accepting that no image – no matter how beautiful – tells the whole story.
“Not pity. Not guilt. Maybe curiosity. Maybe respect. That’s where dignity begins.”
