The photographer Florian Jaenicke, 56, published a column in ZEITmagazin for a year about his son Friedrichwho has been severely disabled since his birth in 2005. Since then, Jaenicke has been telling people at irregular intervals what’s going on with his son.
Towards the end of the year, like most people, I become calmer. I look back on Friedrich and our year and wonder how it could be summed up. In recent years I have always taken a family photo that thematically points out important experiences and events. There was a photo for which we all dressed up as rappers because Friedrich’s brother was starting to rap at the time and was doing a lot of performances; another in which we recreated a Beatles cover because we listened to a lot of Beatles on the long drives to therapy during this time. One where we all have bandages and are wearing hospital gowns because we spent a lot of time in hospitals that year. And one for which we recreated the Holy Family in the barn of a sheep farmer friend of ours. It even appeared in ZEITmagazin Christmas in the second Corona year.
