Germany's foreign minister strolls through an organic farm, buys an apple from smiling children - and then turns from the idyllic scene to call his counterpart in Norway to discuss the Georgia crisis.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a virtual unknown on the German political scene when he became its top diplomat in 2005, has emerged as the leading candidate to take on conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel in next year's general election.
But if he and his struggling Social Democrats (SPD) are to have a chance against the popular "Angie", Mr Steinmeier knows he will need to shed his image as a serious technocrat and show he can connect with common people.
A trip this week to the rural east German region where he hopes to win a parliamentary seat in 2009 was one of the first real tests of the white-haired, 52-year-old Mr Steinmeier's skills as a political campaigner and underlined the challenge he faces.
"He certainly isn't the drinking buddy type," farm worker Hans-Juergen Cieslak said, watching Mr Steinmeier joke with farmers and children in Brandenburg.
"He's serious. Everything he says seems to have substance. He certainly knows his stuff," he added, shortly before Mr Steinmeier's limousine left his sleepy town, followed by a motorcade of four dozen journalists and camera teams.
Campaigning is a novelty for Steinmeier, who has earned respect for his work ethic and mastery of detail as foreign minister, but has never been elected to office.
Although he joined the SPD more than 30 years ago, he did not climb the party ladder through youth groups or regional power centres like many of his top party colleagues.
That has opened him up to criticism that he lacks the political skills necessary to unite the party and lead it to election victories.
Recently, he has laboured overtime to soften his image.
Sporting a baseball jersey, Steinmeier threw the opening pitch at a Boston Red Sox game in April. A few weeks later, he cruised China's Yangtze River and spent an hour posing for pictures with young Chinese in the pouring rain, his black shirt soaked.
In Brandenburg, Mr Steinmeier watched local firemen go through their routine and teenage skaters train, but he seemed most at ease when questions moved from the local poultry farm or fire engine to the conflicts in Georgia or Afghanistan.
"I would have much preferred not to have this trip being overshadowed by crises," Mr Steinmeier said outside a skating rink, in between calls to fellow diplomats. "I want to see more of this region. It's a shame that I don't have my head free."
SPD party head Kurt Beck, who has still not said whether he intends to run for chancellor himself, is under fire within the SPD for backing cooperation with a new far-left party.
Many in the SPD wonder whether the discrete Mr Steinmeier can manoeuvre the centre-left party up from an opinion poll low and mount a challenge to Ms Merkel, with whom he has worked closely in Berlin's awkward "grand coalition" for the past three years.
"Mr Steinmeier has the advantage that he's relatively well-regarded," said Klaus-Peter Schoeppner from pollster Emnid.