The People Who Live in Other Worlds
Every fan of fantasy—books, games, film, any of it—has had the thought at some point: what would it feel like to actually be there? Not to read about it or watch it, but to stand in it physically, with other people around you who’ve also agreed that this specific elsewhere is real, at least for now.
The photographer Boris Leist has spent years following people who’ve made that decision as seriously as anything else in their lives. His book LARP Portraits documents the global Live Action Role Play community—people who transform into zombies and elves and dark knights and mermaids and orcs, who build characters over years and inhabit them with a commitment that makes method acting look casual. Leist studied social science and German literature before picking up a camera, and it shows: these portraits aren’t condescending. They’re paying close attention.
The actors create characters that ideally have the power to block out the modern world and create their own. Freed from social structures, rules, and laws, they become one with themselves and travel together through foreign universes. Fantasy and creativity are the main goal—everyone is invited to take part in this intense, fantastic, and often epic journey.
What I find interesting about LARP is how poorly it maps onto the usual idea of escapism. This isn’t passive consumption—there’s no screen between you and the fiction. You have to show up physically, commit socially, sustain the illusion collectively. The world only exists if everyone in it agrees it does. There’s something almost utopian about that, and something that explains why the people Leist photographs look, under all the latex and foam armor, genuinely at peace.
I’ve spent enough time around cosplay culture to understand the impulse without needing it explained. The appeal isn’t delusion—it’s authorship. You decide what kind of person you are when the ordinary constraints fall away. Leist’s subjects aren’t escaping reality so much as editing it, and his photographs are generous enough to let that distinction show.