Anders Petersen is one of the few photographers who truly lived among his subjects. His work featuring the homeless, sex workers, prisoners, and the institutionalized has often been accused of voyeurism, but for Petersen it was always about empathy. “I really identified with these people and their situation,” he said. “I respected them. I felt very strongly about them.”

His 1984 book Prison explored confinement and freedom. To understand it, Petersen locked himself inside with inmates. “I was interested in the feeling of being locked in,” he said. He found that those in prison long for freedom, while those outside never really have it. We are all trapped in different ways, depending on how we see the world.

In On the Line of Love (1991), he spent three years photographing people in retirement homes. “To be close to death is a way to feel alive,” he said. Surrounded by mortality, he saw innocence and vulnerability in the elderly and reflected on life’s urgency: “If you have visions, if you have a goal, then you’d better hurry up. It’s up to you.”

His final book in the trilogy, Nobody Has Seen It All, took him into a mental hospital. He lived and slept among the patients and staff. “Living and sleeping there changed my approach. I got closer. Many things happen at night. People talk, you see a lot.” Some of his most intimate photographs were later censored, but what remained revealed rare humanity and trust.

That intimacy reached its peak in Café Lehmitz, his most celebrated project, created in Hamburg’s red light district from 1967 to 1970. On his first night, bar patrons grabbed his camera and photographed themselves. The barrier broke, and Petersen began documenting the regulars - prostitutes, drunks, and lovers - with warmth and honesty. “You have to be in it,” he said. “Pictures never come to you; you have to move your ass to get them.”

He later turned his lens on Soho in London, capturing the mix of clubs, burlesque bars, and hidden rooms that defined it. He shot in black and white, often using flash both day and night. “There are so many colors in black and white,” he said. “You can use your imagination more that way.” His photos showed that even as the city changed, places like Soho still held a rare mix of people from every walk of life.

Petersen’s later projects, including From Back Home and City Diary, expanded his focus to the people and streets of different cities around the world. Across six decades, his images capture the beauty of imperfection and the closeness of life on the margins. “I try not to take pictures as I see them, but as I feel them,” he said.

Petersen’s career challenges the assumption that street photography is exploitative. His work documents life as it truly is - unfiltered, imperfect, and deeply human. The discomfort some people feel toward his images often says more about them than about him. To show life as it exists, even in its roughest form, is not exploitation. It is recognition.As Petersen said, “It’s all about people, wherever you are. They are relatives, all one big family.”