Michael Weidt

His step father was the dancer-choreographer Jean Weidt (1904-1988).

The ceramicist Andreas Weidt is his half brother.

Michael Weidt was born at his grandmother's home into the chaotic winter aftermath of war at Berlin-Moabit, a district on the western side of inner Berlin.

A midwife attended the birth, but it was his grandmother who spotted that his umbilical cord had not been properly cut and secured; it was his uncle who rushed the infant to the local hospital.

The baby barely survived the loss of blood.

For the first six years of Weidt's life his grandmother undertook much of the necessary childcare, while during the daytime his mother studied painting and graphic arts at the Weißensee Arts Academy.

Of his relationship with his mother, he recalled that she was "a very enchanting woman ... not at all like a mother, more like a friend..."

His mother, Ursula Wendorff-Weidt (1919-2000) was an artist-illustrator.

Michael Weidt (born 22 February 1946) is a German photographer.

He is known, in particular, for his portraits of East German theatre and movie stars.

His repertoire has also covered the worlds of music, dance and the visual arts more generally.

Weidt grew up in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

His mother married the choreographer Jean Weidt when he was 6 and he was taken with his parents to live in Schwerin in the northern part of what had become, in October 1949, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

It was during the early 1950s in Schwerin that Weidt got to know the actress Jenny Gröllmann (1947-2006), who became a lifelong friend.

His stepfather worked as the Ballet master in Schwerin between 1952 and 1955.

The rest of Michael Weidt's childhood and adolescence were in several important ways defined by enduring unhappiness over the separation from his grandmother who had looked after him during the crucial early years.

Between 1955 and 1958 Weidt lived with his parents in Karl-Marx-Stadt (as Chemnitz was called at that time), after which the family returned to the Berlin area, now living in Rangsdorf, directly to the south of the city.

Michael Weidt, aged 12 in 1958, found himself living only about 25 km (15 miles) away from his grandmother whom he visited regularly.

Nevertheless, he was in East Germany and his grandmother was in West Berlin; in August 1961, concerned by the continuing diminution through emigration of the working age population, the East German government constructed the Berlin Wall.

The visits stopped.

Early in 1964, aged just 18, he attempted an escape to West Berlin in order to be reunited with his grandmother who had brought him up during his early childhood, and whom he badly missed.

The escape attempt failed, but Weidt survived.

Weidt comes from an artistic family.

In 1964, shortly before they were due to take their school final exams, Michael Weidt and a friend decided to try and climb over the wall into West Berlin, in order that Michael might be reunited with his grandmother, and the friend with his father who worked as a publisher in the west.

The attempt failed and the two narrowly avoided being shot by border guards as they crossed the open ground between the "inner wall" and what they believed to be the "outer wall".

One of the border guards informed them that if they had waited a couple of hours, the guards would have been asleep and the boys would have made it to the other side.

They were treated unsympathetically by the guards who placed them in separate corners and held a gun pointed in the face of each during interrogation.

Their jail terms, each lasting three months, were followed by a longer period "out on probation".

Between 1965 and 1967 Weidt undertook a two-year stint as a "guest student" of Arno Fischer who was teaching at the Weißensee Arts Academy.

He could not be accepted as a full-time student because no sponsoring organisation could be found to send him.

He had never sat for his school final exams; details of the education he received from Fischer remain unclear.

Weidt himself recalls:

A student contemporary was Sibylle Bergemann (who later married Fischer).

Weidt published his first professional photograph in 1967; it was a panorama shot of the Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin, published as a double-page spread in "Das Magazin".

In 1968 he embarked on a full-time career as a freelance photographer in East Berlin.

He received work from the East German fashion magazines, "Sibylle", published in East Berlin and Leipzig based "Praktische Mode".

Later, in an interview, he cheerfully explained; "Photographing the women was huge fun. The fashion never interested me".

He quickly became a member of the so-called "Direkt" group of freelance photographers.

Others included his old teacher, Arno Fischer and Sibylle Bergemann, along with Roger Melis and Brigitte Voigt.

He was soon getting fashion photography assignments from other publications such as Neue Berliner Illustrierte, and more work from "Das Magazin".