This is a story about luck. Sometimes luck means meeting the right person at the right moment. Sometimes it is being in the right place without knowing why. And sometimes one small encounter can mean more than it first seems.
Photographer Frederick Fairytale met Dublin-born Lily Scanlan during Berlin Fashion Week, where she was walking in the SONNENKIND show. He immediately felt that there was something special about her energy and later asked her to shoot together at Holzmarkt 25 in Berlin. Lily’s boyfriend James Ryan came along, and what started as a shoot with Lily slowly became a story about the two of them.
The Story
I met Lily at Berlin Fashion Week during the SONNENKIND show. She was walking for the show, and somehow I could tell instantly that she had a very special energy.
Her personality, that laid-back, funny & slightly French vibe — even though she’s from Ireland — made me curious. I usually know pretty much immediately when I want to have someone in front of my camera. So I asked her if we could work together. After looking for a suitable location, I remembered the Holzmarkt, where I’d done a very special shoot earlier.
There was something magical about that place. And it was just as magical this time, because her boyfriend James came along, and I was instantly happy to see these two lovebirds together. It felt just right to include James in some shots too, even though it wasn’t planned. Both of them looked so in love, which is why I also took some shots from James’s perspective.
Once we’d shot everything and had some udon noodles together, I just couldn’t stop taking a few more shots as we walked along the East Side Gallery together.
My camera and I just fell in love with Lily & James.
We talked about music and movies, and what a lucky twist of fate that one of James’s music recommendations was Masayoshi Takanaka — I’d already saved one of his songs as a favorite. “OH! TENGO SUERTE” — that means “Oh, I’m lucky.”
It seemed so perfect for the series that I named it after that song.
This series follows a single day. It opens with Lily at ease in a quiet moment of her own — then James crosses her path, and everything shifts. The photographs trace what unfolds between them: easy laughter, time spent wandering without direction, the click of James’s camera catching her mid-thought. The sequence closes as they walk home together at dusk, leaving the story open — as if it’s only just beginning. Frederick Fairytale
Lily: “My name is Lily and I’m from Dublin, Ireland. I’m at the end of a wonderful Erasmus year in Berlin where I studied Law and German at Humboldt University. I met Fred behind the scenes of a show I was walking in for Berlin Fashion Week and absolutely loved his style of photography – the Fashion Show was such a special experience and looking at Fred’s photos transported me right back to the excitement of that day. I was thrilled when Fred asked to do another shoot, it felt so natural that I almost forgot there was a camera there!”
James Ryan: “I’m James and have been going back and forth to Berlin this year visiting Lily. It’s been amazing progressively exploring the city and there’s no better way of capturing that feeling than photography! It was great to meet Frederick and take part in the shoot, it was a welcome surprise!”
