Angela Merkel and the art of being ordinary

German photojournalist Herlinde Koelbl still remembers her first photo session with a shy and awkward young woman named Angela Merkel back in 1991.  

"I was struck by her power even though she was an inexperienced woman at that time," said Koelbl.  

"She was a scientist and then switched to politics. But even so, she already had a strong individuality and also a strong will. She already knew what she wants and doesn't want." 

Koelbl, now in her 80s, was starting a project to document the impact of power on people over time. She would continue to photograph Merkel, who's stepping down as German chancellor, on and off over the next 30 years.  

When they started, Merkel was 37 and had been a member of Germany's first post-unification parliament for just a year, and recently appointed minister for women and youth in the cabinet of Helmut Kohl, the father of German unification. 

Other politicians in the project included Gerhard Schroeder, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, and his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, in the late 1990s.

Schroeder is pictured with his trademark cigar while Merkel said she didn't know how to sit or where to place her arms, recalled Koelble, who gave her subjects no direction beyond a request to be "open."