Some people write about cities. Others seem to carry entire cities around inside them.

Rob Doyle is an Irish writer from Dublin, the author of Here Are the Young Men, This Is the Ritual and Threshold. His writing moves between fiction, autobiography, philosophy and the wonderfully strange corners of human existence. Berlin has played its part in that universe too. Its streets, nightlife, characters and beautiful chaos have found their way into his stories.

We met at a party in Berlin, just as Rob was preparing to move back to Ireland.

It felt like the right moment to make some photographs.

So we wandered through Neukölln, a camera between us and a city that had been the backdrop to so many chapters of his life and work. No elaborate plan. Just a writer, a photographer and a neighbourhood that had plenty of stories of its own.

I like to think of these portraits as a little goodbye. Not necessarily to Berlin forever, but to a particular moment in someone’s life. The kind you only recognise as a chapter ending when you’re already turning the page.

One last walk before the next story begins.