A German couple’s tribute to island life

      

Before the Maldives became a postcard fantasy, it was already paradise to Hermann and Margret Liemann. The German couple, photographers by profession and adventurers by instinct, first arrived in the Maldives in January 1983, having picked their destination out of a catalogue.

“We had been working non-stop in our photo studio since 1979, ten to twelve hours a day,” Margret recalled. “Our friends told us, if you don’t take a break, we won’t come visit anymore.” So Hermann found a brochure, checked where the sea and air were warmest, and booked two tickets to a place neither of them nor any of their clients had heard of. “They asked if we were taking a train or a car to get there,” Hermann laughed. “No one knew where the Maldives were.”

The two-week holiday changed everything. “The moment we stepped out of the plane, the heat, the turquoise water, the palm trees. We said to each other: this is paradise,” said Margret. “When we had to leave, we cried.”

They returned in 1984, and this time, something unexpected happened. A resort manager on Kuramathi learned they were professional photographers and asked if they would create images for postcards. “They had pictures,” Hermann explained, “but none that truly showed their own island – just generic beaches and palm trees that could be anywhere.”

Equipped with professional cameras, lenses, and film that most locals simply didn’t have access to at the time, the Liemanns began photographing the Maldives. Over the following years, they travelled to more than 45 islands, often by open boat, capturing the people, the labour, and the slow rhythm of life. “We always photographed people,” Hermann said. “Not just the ocean. The women with colourful dresses, the fishermen, the children, the way they lived.”

Their ability to move across islands was rare. At a time when locals had limited freedom to travel between atolls and tourists were mostly confined to resorts, the Liemanns were given boats, fuel, and open access. “They gave us everything we needed,” Hermann said. “One manager told us: take the boat, take the captain, go wherever you want.” The result is a body of work that is both document and tribute – a powerful record of a country in transition and of lives rarely captured.

That legacy lives on at Ananea Madivaru.

The couple’s photographs now line the walls of every guest villa and residence at the resort. Tucked into the coconut palms, the resort’s art gallery features the first-ever exhibition dedicated to the Liemanns’ work in the Maldives, a soft-spoken homage to a time before the boom. It marks the beginning of a new curatorial programme at Madivaru, which plans to spotlight Maldivian culture and heritage through rotating exhibitions and collaborations with local artists and archivists.

Located in the untouched seclusion of North Ari Atoll, Ananea Madivaru is a barefoot-luxury retreat spread across two private islands. With its relaxed elegance, design-led spaces, and intimate connection to its surroundings, the resort offers more than serenity it offers story. The Liemanns’ photography weaves perfectly into this vision, grounding luxury in memory and meaning.

The couple, now in their seventies, have transformed their old studio in Germany into a museum housing over 500 vintage cameras. But they continue to return to the Maldives, still photographing, still drawn by the light. “Colour gives more information,” Hermann said. “Black and white is art. But we were documenting. We wanted to show the truth.”

At Ananea Madivaru, that truth lives on in every room, on every wall. Framed in time, light, and care.