Feel the moment

This post is taken from my latest photo ponderings, Sideways, which I write every month or so. As you may you know, in this blog I usually write about creativity in general, using my experience as a photographer, but not limited to photography. Sideways is all about photography in which I offer nuggets of photo inspiration.

I am a people photographer by heart. As much as I photograph other subjects, it’s people that make me tick when I am out using my camera. For that very reason, I am a devoted documentary photographer.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a photo master class in Casablanca. It was taught by the renowned photographers Maggie Steber and Sara Terry. Both are routed in the documentary tradition; however, both with a strong poetic vision. This is why I attended their class; to encourage a more poetic approach in my photography, and leave some of the rational, linear and journalistic thinking behind. It’s a direction I have sought and tried to develop for a few years already.

What an experience the class was! Maggie and Sara were so good at pushing and encouraging, not only me, but everyone.

My assignment during the week was simply how does feel to be in Casablanca—or wherever I was. Of course, I took in and applied thoughts and focus points of other participants. Complex composition, for instance, photos with layers of depths, was much in discussions all the time.

But: how does it feel? That seems like an easy assignment. I almost always let my feelings guide my photography. Often, it’s some kind of attraction to people I decide to photograph. It’s about connecting to who or whatever I photograph. But feeling as a subject in and of itself, that is quite a different matter. How do you transfer feeling sad or melancholy or delighted into a photograph—in a place unknown to you?

Not easy. Not as topic on its own. Not to me.

Generally, photography is really about how it feels rather than what it looks like. It’s about seeing that even the mundane details, at home as in faraway places, can be extraordinary and full of feelings. When we get it right, they can feel like timeless gifts. I think of photographs of this kind as kisses: They exist in a brief ecstatic moment and then take on a life of their own.

Photography, at its best, is about moments—particularly when photographing people. It’s never about how it looks. When staying on the surface, and using easy digital effects to make our pictures pretty, we risk trivializing how we really experience our lives. Because, in the end, that is what we want to capture. Life as it unfolds—even when we photograph inanimate objects.

The unforgettable photograph isn’t the most technically proficient or the most “artistic” shot or the one with the “best” composition but the one that makes the deepest connection to the moment you are experiencing and the person you are photographing. It’s about your experience inside a moment.

This life of ours, whether we try to photograph it or not, is a string of moments, like notes in a song. So is a photo shoot, wherever you happen to photograph. You literally capture one moment after the next. Which moment will provide the unforgettable pictures isn’t much in your control. You can’t really see what your camera is capturing in the hundredth of a second the shutter is open. Often, you have no clue what your best photo is until you look at the series of moments playing back on your camera. Often, because that little screen on the camera doesn’t tell you much, the surprise may happen on the computer, hours or days later.

If you can’t see the moments, you can feel their flow, like feeling the flow of music. That feeling is essential to taking captivating photos; it’s as important as having a good eye. Ask yourself, “What makes these moments and these people extraordinary?” Ask that, rather than: “What’s the pose? How am I framing or composing?” And let your feelings steer you to the answer.

Alas, like I wrote, I like to compare taking photos to a kiss. Do you use your eyes when you kiss? Sometimes, maybe, but generally your eyes are closed and it is all about feeling. I try to photograph from the same place.

Take the photo above, captured in the medina, the old town, of Casablanca. I came across these two gentlemen enjoying a quiet moment and their tea together on a street corner. It would probably be wrong to say that it was love at first sight, but there was something serene and so universal about their repose. Asked if it was OK for them to be photographed, they agreed, and I lowered myself to their level and started to take a series of photographs of them. First, they looked into the camera and smiled. However, I was after an off-moment when they didn’t relate to my photographing them. So I kept shooting. At some point I, mostly unconsciously, registered a guy moving into the frame on the street around the corner, adding some depth to the situation. I shifted the camera a little to the left—and took a handful of more frames. The last frame is the one in which the moments fall in place, the two men in the foreground looking away, commenting on something behind my right, and the guy around the corner standing still for a moment.

It all happened in a fluid exchange, me feeling my way, more than seeing and consciously thinking.

So during the class, how did it go with photographing feelings as a subject of its one? Let me put it this way: It’s an ongoing project. And I am having a lot of fun—as frustrating as it can be.

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Photo Workshops and Tours Spring 2024
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for the coming spring.

“The Personal Expression”—a weekend in Bergen, Norway with focus on how to develop your personal, photographic expression. May 3rd to 5th 2024.

“On the Path of Cold War Memories”—a very special workshop exploring Berlin in a historic light. Go back in time to when there were two Germanies and two Berlins. May 12th to 17th 2024.

Goodbye Artist

Is photography art? Should we even care? What is art, anyway?

But first: Now that the summer is slowly coming to an end, I hope you have been able to enjoy this life-endorsing season. As for myself, I have been fortunate enough to venture out on many outdoor trips—in mountains, in forests as well as on the sea—and I have read a lot.

It’s the latter I want to write about in this blog post—or what it has lead to. Among other texts, I have read lots of articles, debates, talks and comments from old masters of photography. As so, an address delivered by Paul Strand at the Clarence White School of Photography in 1923 has dramatically changed the way I see myself as a photographer, my view on art and maybe even my photography (though the latter remains to see, I guess) .

That may seem as quite the exaggerated statement, but hear—or read—me out.

Paul Strand was a trend-setting, American photographer in the beginning of the previous century. According to Wikipedia, he, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form at the time. As to this day, he is still one of the most recognized artists in the pantheon of photographers. However, he might just have disagreed with this very characterization himself. Or not cared.

Photography has always been a stepdaughter of art. As much as it is recognized as one of many art forms today, it’s still not fully on line with the classic arts such as painting, music, sculpturing, etc. Work by the old masters of photography, such as Paul Strand, are sought after and sold at extremely high prices on auction—but they are still far from what the old masters of the classical disciplines—such as Picasso and Miró, contemporaries of Strand—achieve.

As for myself, as a photojournalist and a documentary photographer, I have always been reluctant to call myself an artist. It just seemed too pretentious. The last many years, though, I have slowly changed my perception and gradually come to terms with myself doing work that is more artistic. In the end, it comes down to a desire to create more personal work—work that could be called art photography.

Now then, in from the past, comes Paul Strand.

In the aforementioned address, he talks to the students of photography (and a hundred years later to me) about what is required to become a photographer: “It involves, first and foremost, a thorough respect and understanding for the particular materials with which he or she is impelled to work, and a degree of mastery over them, which is craftsmanship. And secondly, that indefinable something, the living element which fuses with craftsmanship, the element which relates the product to life and must therefore be the result of a profound feeling and experience of life.”

While craftsmanship is relatively easy to learn, this indefinable something, according to Strand, can’t be taught or given, but develops within yourself by what he calls a free way of living. By that, he means free of conventions, free of other opinions, free of already existing ideas, and not the least free from whatever art is defined as, and, more to the point, free from wanting to become an artist. What is art anyway? Nobody can precisely define it and as it has gotten used in an ever broader meaning, it has at the same time lost its meaning.

“This wanting to be what may truthfully be called an artist, is the last thing in the world to worry about. You either are the thing or you are not.”

Strand has but no respect for the so-called art photographers of the time. At the beginning of the 19th century, pictorialism was the fashionable style. For Strand, this way of making photographs was dishonest, trying to turn photography into something, which it is not, giving it a painterly feeling. He saw it as means to be accepted in what he calls the polite society of artists. These “artists” were doing photography in lack of enough talent to become good painters.

He wants the future photographers he is talking to, to be free, as described above. They should photograph with honesty, honest to themselves. He encourages them to photograph and experiment on their own accord, free from whatever has been or will be installed in them from previous photographers, schools and the future. More than anything, he urges them to forget about art.

“If you really want to paint, then do not photograph, except as you may want to amuse yourself along of the rest of Mr. Eastman’s customers [Eastman was Kodak’s founder]. Photography is not a short cut to painting, being an artist, or anything else.”

Photographers should not try to “make” art, but rather capture good photographs. In doing so, “there are no short cuts, no formulae, no rules, except those of your own living.”

Be as good a photographer as possible, forget being an artist. That is in essence Paul Strand’s message.

He was not alone in this assessment. The same year Edward Weston, another of the modernist photographers of the 19th century, in an interview in New York Times said something alike: “I don’t care about making photography an art. I want to take good photographs. I’d like to know who first got this idea in his head that dreaminess and mist is art. Take things as they are; take good photographs and the art will take care of itself.”

That’s me now. I am a photographer—period. Like a writer is a writer, a painter is a painter, a composer is a composer. Why care about the artist, anyway?

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Photo Workshops and Tours in 2023
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for this year.

”Along the Streets of Prague”—five days in the beautiful city of Prague, The Czech Republic. This is a jewel in the middle of Europe with its historical, cultural and human melting pot. September 7th to 10th 2023.

”Photo Tour in Granada”—a week in Nicaragua for the adventures. We will explore the colonial city and its extraordinary countryside. November 5th to 15th 2023.

”On the Tracks of Che Guevara”—ten days in eastern Bolivia. This is a great opportunity to discover one of the most beautiful countries in South America. October 23rd to 31st 2023.

Are you interested in developing your photographic skills? Do you like to travel? Do you want to make your photos tell a story in a much stronger vocabulary? Find your own expression? Develop your vision and become more creative? Any of these workshops would take your photography to the next level. I promise you, you will be in for an amazing experience. Click any of the links for more info.

Where Are You Going?

Have you ever heard yourself speaking or singing on a recording? I still remember the first time this happened to me. When I played back the recording I couldn’t believe how much different I sounded than I had expected. It was as if I was listening to a completely different person. Was this my voice?

Of course, this is how it feels the first time for everybody. The discrepancy is caused by the resonance created in our skull combined with the direct passage of sound waves between the oral cavity and the inner ears. The difference between what we are used to hear and what our voice actually sounds like is for many an insurmountable barrier; so much that many end up hating hearing their own, recorded voice.

I think the same dynamic plays out with many creative people’s metaphorical, artistic voice. As much as we urge for our own, distinct voice, many are unaware of how they artistically communicate with others. Worse, this lack of awareness means whatever they create is inconsistent with whom they really are—and perhaps even deeply disconnected from their passions and ambitions. They project who they think they should be, and ignore the deeper signals about who they really are.

I have often written about artistic voice in this blog. More and more I see a clear connection between developing a clear, distinct voice and your creative development. One is expressed through the other and vice versa. I also believe that being honest in your creative development will infuse a more authentic voice.

Your artistic voice isn’t something you sit down and deliberately create, like a blueprint of your new house. It comes through creating and practising your artistic skills—and simply living, the more authentic the better.

Nevertheless, according to the author Todd Henry, to spur the development of your authentic voice, you must cultivate three tings: A strong sense of identity which means doing artistic work that is rooted in something substantive and personally meaningful; a consonant vision for your work, meaning a sense of the ultimate impact you want to have; and mastery of your skills.

Identity is primarily defined by the question “Who are you?” However you respond, it would be a story about how you perceive yourself and your place in the world. In fact, your sense of identity is a collection of many stories, related to your childhood experiences, your job, your hobbies, your political views and a number of other defining characteristics. Thus, self-knowledge is a critical ingredient of identity, because when it is lacking you are more likely to compromise your true thoughts and beliefs. You must have a rooted understanding of why your work matters to you, what makes it unique, and why you believe it should matter to others.

The second part of what instigate an authentic voice, the vision, is primarily defined by the question “Where are you going?” This implies that you need to be able to articulate the kind of effect you want to have and how you want the world to be different through your efforts. You should at least have a sense of how you plan to impact them. The majority of great creators have some sense of where their work is leading and the ultimate impact they want to have. They have “a north pole” towards which to navigate, even if only in a general sense.

The final and third piece to what positively influences your artistic voice is defined by the question “How will you get there?” As you sharpen you skills you have more tools in your toolbox and give yourself more options for expression. I am often one who attach less importance to skills, but no doubt artists who sharpen their skills are better positioned to create more diverse and stronger work.

The answers to the three questions give you a map for encouraging the development of your authentic, artistic voice. Your sense of identity leads you to a compelling vision, which then illuminates the skills you need to master in order to evolve as an artist.

We have just commenced with a new year. Maybe this is a good time to sit down and ask yourself these three questions. The answers may open up new ways for your creative development and in so doing also stimulate your development of an authentic voice.

Talking about a new year, I want to wish you all the best, creatively and otherwise, for 2023.

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Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Start with the Box!

I often state that as creatives or artists—in whatever medium you are working—we should more often break the rules, not feel confined to conformed understanding; or as it is often expressed: be thinking outside of the box. At the same time, I acknowledge that those rules or all that which comes with traditional craftsmanship is there to help us learn and develop. It can be seen as accumulated wisdom (collected over centuries or even millenniums by artists before us) functioning as guidelines more than rules. Only when it starts to limit our creativity is all that accumulated knowledge becoming a limitation.

What I am trying to say is this: Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box.

We need to learn the basics of our craft. If you understand the traditional craftsmanship, that is—when speaking about photography—the technical aspect of handling the camera, understanding composition, having thorough knowledge about light’s influence on a photo, and being familiar with the visual language of photography; only then do you achieve full freedom to express your intentions with a photograph.

Some believe learning the traditional craftsmanship will limit their artistic voice. However, I do not agree to that perception. As I see it, knowing will only make you freer—as long as you do not let those old rules confine your creativity. It can actually—and most likely will—become a resource for expressing your artistic intent.

Yet, the result may well be an unliberated or constricted photographer, if he or she in a mechanical fashion attempt to reproduce a rigid, pre-established vision and in so doing is averting the possibility of seeing the unexpected—which I have just written enthusiastically about in various posts last week. This kind of restricted awareness can indeed impoverish a photographer’s vision and art. As Philippe L. Gross writes in his book Tao of Photography; “Imprisoned by the discriminatory mind, the photographer with constricted awareness is unable to appreciate the boundless visual richness of the world that lies beyond the filters and projections imposed by mental constructs. Only when the photographer can become free of the discriminatory mind can creative, unconstructed seeing occur.”

It may seem at first that Gross believes the box—to use this expression—is actually constricting the photographer. However, that is not his conclusion. The point—and my point, too—is not to throw this box of traditional understanding away, but use it as well as thinking beyond what the box contains. Thinking outside the box only becomes possible when you have a box in the first place.

In his book, Gross does not use expressions such as a box and thinking outside of the box, but uses the term Little Understanding for the traditional craftsmanship and Great Understanding for being open to the world—both inside and outside—and having an unconstructed awareness. Philippe Gross makes a point that to develop our true artistic voice we need both.

He writes; “General speaking, Little Understanding in camerawork represents the frame of mind that concentrates on techniques, sets goals, applies photographic rules, arranges a scene to fit a desired outcome, and attempts to gain control over the subject. Great Understanding, on the other hand, corresponds to the photographer’s ability to respond holistically and spontaneously to a scene without overtly interfering with the subject. Ultimately, the liberated photographer is a companion of both forms of understanding: to develop one’s artistic ability demands first fully knowing and then transcending techniques—seeing, feeling, and responding holistically to a photographic scene.”

In other words, mastery of the craft’s skill does not mean rejecting the thinking outside of the box. It simple means freedom from the belief that traditional craftsmanship is a reliable, necessary, and, not the least, an exclusive guide to artistry. The creative and free artist can make use of the box without being entangled by it.

I will not conceal the fact that photographers are biased about this, particularly when it comes to compositional rules. In The Essence of Photography Bruce Barnbaum writes that in his book he does “not discuss any rules for good composition. I avoid them because there are none. Every composition is unique, and following some concocted formula will not guarantee a good photograph. There are no formulas; there are no rules of composition. I strongly urge all photographers, beginning or experienced, to avoid any instruction that claims there are—it’s bogus.”

Not surprisingly after what I have written so far, I do not agree with Barnbaum (still, I do recommend the book; it is a very personal and insightful book about his photographic approach. I only disagree with him on this point). Well, there are no rules as such—of course. Nevertheless, painters for centuries and photographers for almost two have built upon each other an understanding of what works and what normally does not work in order to create a balanced composition that is best read by the eyes’ movements. Of course, that may not be your intention—which is just fine. But these ageless compositional rules—which I would rather regard as guidelines, because no one has to follow them, indeed—can be very helpful for particular beginners who try to come to grasp with creating a photo that somehow works compositionally. And of course, any time those guidelines can be broken, as I have always been encouraging.

However, and here I am in total agreement with Bruce Barnbaum, he writes: “You have to be flexible at all times, and you have to work with the situation you’re in, even if it’s not the one you wanted.” Yes, and I would like to add; use all of yourself in the process, whatever you have in the box and whatever you can find outside of it.

Seeing Beyond

                 Do you see the iguana?

The way we human beings have developed our seeing, that is to objectify and label everything around us, is unfortunately restricting us more than it is aiding us when we photograph. Because – as I wrote in my post Photographically Seeing a couple of weeks ago – the way our eyes see and the way the camera sees is quite different, we almost need to unlearn our regular way of seeing. Instead of for instance identifying a horse as a “HORSE”, that is a horse as an idea or a label, we need to pause our usual scanning with the eyes and rather discover the uniqueness of that particular horse. Objectifying is perfect for daily survival so that we can respond quickly to new situations occurring around us all the time, but not when you want to photograph beyond the obvious.

We will improve greatly as photographers if we can make ourselves see beyond the labels we have wired our brains to register. What instead of a dead, crooked and fallen trunk we can see an iguana climbing over it? Or see – and photograph – the most beautiful landscape in some clothes piled up on a drawer? What I am talking about is being imaginative and changing our usual perspective. When we were kids we had no problems seeing other realities in the world around us, seeing beyond the labels, we as grown-ups are so stuck with. We all delighted doing it when we were kids, pretending to see or seeing things invisible to others. Socialization, adaptation and communication, however, introduced a different agenda and began to mould perceptual conformity. Our reconstructing skills or imaginations – being able to see beyond the labels – were lost.

Open our minds beyond labels and beyond the obvious can open a whole new world for our photography. Derek Doeffinger, a photograph who has written a dozen books about photography, for instance, suggests that «instead of seeing the horseness of a horse, you might see it as a landscape – the prairie of its back rising into a mountainous neck. Or you may see it as a temple supported with four slender columns.»

Developing our receptiveness is a most effective way to avoid photographic clichés. When asked what he looks for in photographing, Michael Smith replied: «I am not looking for anything. I am just looking – trying to have a full an experience as possible. The point is to have a full experience –the photograph is just a bonus.»

In many ways I am talking about training the capacity to discover new ways of apprehending the world. Are you ready to see beyond seeing? Take a look at the photo beneath. How many different animals or other objects can you see in those rocks? .

Photographically Seeing

For a photographer seeing is where it all starts. If you don’t see anything that interests you, you won’t be able to take any interesting photos. Obviously. However, there is a big difference between seeing in general and seeing with the intention of taking a photograph. In many ways we have to unlearn the regular way of seeing. If you “only” see like you do when you walk down the street without a camera or when you are socializing with your friends or whatever you do when you are not photographing, you will miss out on the interesting and captivating photos.

For many people—photographers and viewers alike—a photograph is simply a record of what was in front of the camera. There is really no thought given to interpretation, or the fact that the camera sees quite differently than human beings do. You want to capture a nice moments with you friends? You raise the camera or the cell phone, and capture a photo without much more thought to it. But for those of us who pursue photography as a creative, artistic and/or personal expressive endeavour, we learn to see like the camera, we learn to recognize what has a potential to become a captivating photo and we learn that the scene in front of the camera is only a starting point for the photographic journey.

It’s easy to look at things. We do it constantly without giving it much thought. It gets us through the day. But how often do you stop to really see what you are looking at? By this I mean seeing something in depth, looking at it long enough and intently enough that you are not only seeing that it’s there, but you actually study it and learn something about it.

Most of the time, that is not how we see. Our mind is simply not set up to spend a lot of time contemplating about things we see. To be able to survive—and this has been developed over the course of human existence—our eyes constantly scan the scenery and interpret on the fly whatever is. We want to detect anything dangerous as quickly as possible, we want to be able to get things done without having to process the smallest of visual clues. In this process of learning to see, already as babies we start to categorize things. When you see a book for the first time, you spend time figuring out what it is. You study it intently and in depth. But then when you see the book for the fifth, the tenth or the fiftieth time, you slowly start to recognize what it is without having to put you full attention to it. After a while your mind makes a mental picture, characterizes it and labels it “BOOK”. You no longer see a book when you encounter one although your unconscious mind has recorded it. Consciously you may vaguely register the book, or you may not at all. Our mind objectifies everything to make it easier for us to understand and evaluate what we see. If you do see a book, you don’t see it as a unique book, but as the object “BOOK”.

This is one reason why learning to see with the intention to photograph requires experience. By nature we are only geared to see objects, this is what we been trained to do since we were born. A baby learns to see mommy, daddy and other things of importance as he or she grows. Cameras on the other hand capture light. Of course the human eye registers light too, but when the baby grows up it doesn’t really see mommy or anything else as a set of light levels. However, that’s exactly how the camera “sees”. Because a camera records only light, the photographer has to learn to see light, and understand how light brings out or destroys the lines, forms, tonality, colours, dimensionality and all other aspects of a scene.

Seeing with the intention to take photographs comes with learning and experience. When I teach workshops a lot of attention goes to seeing and translate what you see with you eyes into something the camera can transform into a captivating photo. As with any other skill, in the end, the more you do it the better you become. Practise makes perfect. And when you learn to see as the camera you will also start to register interesting subjects to be photographed more often and more clearly. Remember my post Seeing before Seeing, in which I asked what triggers you to push the button? The fact is that the better you become in seeing as a photographer, the more clear you will become about what has a potential as a photograph, the more often something will trigger you to photograph, which again will lead you to take better and more captivating photos.

A Double Edged Sword

Don’t we all have to admit it; that we as photographers or creative persons of some form—at least to some extent—all crave for recognition, one way or another, whether we are professionals or pure amateurs? But don’t we all also know that recognition is a double edged sword? On one hand, yes, it’s nice to get recognized for the work we do, for our effort, but the flip side of the coin is when recognition becomes the driving force for our creativity. Then we stand to lose it, the uniqueness of our vision and expression.

What one day may lead to recognition is ignoring what makes us crave it. That’s the only way we can create from our heart. Without heart and without ourselves invested in our creative work, it only becomes an act of deceit and thus has no artistic or creative value.

What do we actually take for recognition? Money? Fame? Both—when talking about creativity—are black holes that easily destroy us and the uniqueness that sets us apart as artists. Being true to our inner artist may, if we are lucky, result in work that sells or gain recognition—but often not. If money determinates what is good art, neither Paul Gaugain nor Vincent van Gogh were artists worth our attention. But despite lack of recognition, fame and money in their time, they kept doing what they felt they were meant to do. Their creativity flourished and had to be expressed, it wasn’t depending upon recognition.

Only by doing what comes from inside of us, without second thoughts to money or fame, may we be true artists, be true to ourselves. It doesn’t matter if we are professionals or amateurs. Still the professional is often caught up in the money-game since after all he or she is making a living out of a creative field. Thus for them it’s even more important to protect their own integrity and their inner artist.

Often enough I may have to make my editors happy by doing what they want me to do, but still I try to bring my own vision into the equation. Sometimes it won’t work, but then I can always fall back on my own personal projects in which I only answer to myself. And even if amateurs don’t create for money, they can still fall into the trap of recognition and fame. We all want it—in one way or another, no?

As Julia Cameron writes in her book The Artist’s Way: «I must learn that as an artist my credibility lies with me, God, and my work. In other words, if I have a poem to write, I need to write that poem—whether it will sell or not. I need to create what wants to be created.»

The same goes for photographers. Our vision needs to be expressed, whether the pictures sell or not, whether they will bring us fame or not. The joy is really to feel how our vision—our true creativity—becomes reality, becomes expressed. That is the biggest fulfilment, the ultimate satisfaction. The creative process in itself is what makes it exciting. Let’s not confuse it with money or fame. Let’s not slip into the black whole of vanity.

No Easy Way Around

I often get questions about photographic voice and how to create a signature style—not the least since I regularly teach a workshop called “Your Photographic Voice”. However, there is no easy answer to the question, simply because there isn’t a quick and simple solution to finding this unique way of expressing oneself, not as a photographer nor in any other art form.

The not so helpful answer is; it takes time to develop your own signature. Moreover, it’s not something you can sit down and figure out or construct. As a photographer, you need to find the signature style, rather than create it. Or let it find you. Nevertheless, there are things you can do to allow yourself the freedom to grow into your practice and find your way. Once you fully accept this freedom, originality follows almost inevitably.

So keep in mind, the way in which all artists discover their individuality takes time. In fact, you develop your voice through your whole career or life span as a photographer. It’s in constant development, and the longer you have been nurturing your art, the more distinctive your voice grows to be. If you are concerned with developing originality, first of all don’t think about been original. This is something I have addressed before. If you try to be original, the result will rather be contrived. Instead, don’t think about being original, but allow yourself the freedom to experiment, exploring as many different mediums, subject matters, and approaches as possible.

It is only through the process and practice that a photographer develop true originality, as he or she slides subconsciously into repetitive patterns that build upon one another and over time form natural habits. Originality is the accumulation of a series of these subconscious processes, that when seen as a whole are a representation of the originality inherent in each individual. Not two people are the same, and thus no two people’s work is the same. When one photographer—or artist—makes work that appears similar to another’s, it either isn’t as similar as it may appear, or someone isn’t being true to their own individuality.

To be true to your own individuality, you need to pursue your passions. It’s through passionate work you develop your voice. Passion is simply the foundation of any successful, personal expression. As such, I think that is the strongest advice to take to heart—literarily. Photograph what you are passionate about. Find themes and subject matters you really care about, not only photographically but personally.

Then make photographing these subjects personal, that is to say photograph what you know. Photograph close to home, physically or figuratively. For instance, photograph your family or photograph your friends. Many a renowned photograph has made a name for him- or herself by photographing their personal relationships, among others Sally Mann, Nan Goldin or Larry Clark, to mention a few.

What makes your photography stand out—over time—is showing the rest of us how your world looks like photographed. Tell us your story—in your photos. When you share your personal life, you share your life experience and your heartfelt revelations. Just remember, when I write personal, I don’t mean private. Nobody wants to pry into your private life, but sharing your personal experiences will make us curious and capture us. Through a personal approach, your photography will be able to touch others and make them learn more about life, in general.

The late photographer, Diane Arbus, once wrote: “The more personal you make it, the more universal it becomes”.

A final thought about how to pursue a personal, photographic voice or encourage this budding individuality is to take in as much art as possible, from as many different approaches as possible. And I don’t talk only about photography now, although if you are particularly interested in nature photography, for instance, open up yourself to other photographic approaches as well. If your only reference material is nature photography, it is easy to see how the work you make might quickly become a reworking of other nature photographs. When absorbing a vast array of different approaches to making, alas not only photographic approaches, some will filter their way into your work, distilled through the prism of your personality. So give yourself as much inspiration as possible, from as many varying sources as possible. Even seek out work that you dislike. It will refine your own signature.

Learning by Doing

Sometimes the only way to learn is the hard way. You make a mistake that you will never do again. While the last week has seen further strengthening of lockdown here where I have been grounded for the last year or so (hopefully the last spell before things start to get better), I have spent time organizing my analogue archive—those stories and images that I never got around to properly store after they were shot.

One such story was from a travel to Japan and about sumo wrestlers. This is back in time, way before digital cameras were even thought of. Obviously, the story was captured on film. However, it never made it into a published story. I screwed up.

I had been in Japan already for some weeks, trying without much success to get access to a gym where the sumo wrestlers train. I had been attending a tournament but was not able to access their training grounds. Then someone, now years later I can quite recall whom and how, tipped me about a gym where the big fellows trained every morning. It was in the outskirts of Tokyo.

So, I just turned up at the break of dawn. And there they were, already into their morning routine. I had no appointment, but just started photographing. It was still dark inside the gym; with the only light provide being daylight streaming through the doors and windows. Aka, harsh contrast and difficult shooting conditions.

While I was in Japan, the big Japanese film manufacturer released a new slide film with, back then, the exhilarating speed of 1600 ISO being able push to 3200. Remember at the time a slide film with 200 ISO was at the high end—before this new film. I had just bought some rolls to test it out, and I thought it would be perfect for this dark gym.

First mistake! Never do important work with equipment you have not tried out beforehand, whether a camera, a new lens or, as in this case, a new film. I pushed the film to 3200 ISO. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the rolls developed while still in Japan. When I got back home and got the rolls developed, all the images where too dark. Somehow, the lab hadn’t gotten it right, I believe because they had never developed this film before.

The second mistake, which wasn’t doing things worse, really, since the films were screwed anyway, but would have been, if not for the underexposed and/or underdeveloped rolls. I didn’t move close enough. I felt I was intruding, most of all because I had not made arrangements beforehand, and couldn’t communicate with anyway at the gym. It was a little intimidating being in a place where nobody understood, and I wasn’t sure they wanted me to be around in the first place.

As I was photographing the sumo wrestlers’ morning training, albeit not knowing nothing would come out of it, a crowd started to gather outside the gym. I slowly gathered it was me, that I was the attraction. Nobody out in this suburb of Tokyo were used to a gaijin—a foreigner. That sure put extra pressure on me, and maybe part of why I failed so miserably.

At least, I got back from the whole experience with a lovely memory. As I was packing down my equipment, believing I had done a scoop and would get the biggest story ever published in a major magazine, a young Japanese man from the crowd approach me and asked in poor English if I would like to come along and have breakfast with him and his family at his home. Of course, I couldn’t turn down the invitation—and wouldn’t want to—and had this lovely breakfast with him, his wife and their only child. We couldn’t say much to each other, but used the international sign language.

Today that would be quite unusual, to be invited home to a total strange in the middle a big city. At least I got away with something.

The images here are an attempt to recover some of the images, by scanning and processing them. Took quite some time…

Regretting Those Images not Captured

I don’t think I have ever regretted photos that I have actually taken. But I sure have regretted those I didn’t capture. The reasons for not taking those photos may vary. Sometimes I just didn’t have the energy to start photographing, for instance after a strenuous a hike, and sometimes it was my inner self that lost the guts to take photos, most often when I wanted to photograph people.

No matter what the reasons were, I still clearly remember those times when I thought to myself, I need to capture this moment—and didn’t.

During the passed weekend, I went through my old film archive. I wanted to clean up and get it all in better shape. One of the first shoots I came across was captured long time ago, when I still was a student—and before turning myself into a photojournalist.

It was a weekend. A good friend and I wanted to go for a hike up in the mountains on the west coast of Norway. My friend knew about a mountain farm we could stay at, beautifully situated in a lush but steep valley.

It was about a two-hour hike to get to the farm. There was no road to the place, only a steep and at places quite narrow trail. It was summer; the weekend was blessed with gorgeous weather, sun warming from a clear blue sky. The hike up to the farm was almost effortless despite the steepness and quite rough path. We arrived when the sun was about to set, everything was bathed in the golden rays of the sun. It was like a fairytale. I remember it so clearly.

At the farm lived two sisters and a brother. They were in the 70’s and had been born and lived their whole lives together at the farm. They had some sheep, a couple of horses and some other animals and made do with a very simple living. No electricity. Whatever they didn’t produce themselves they would have to carry up the same trail my friend and I had arrived by.

My friend and I had a lovely weekend with the three elderly siblings. We relaxed in the meadows and hiked up on the mountains surrounding the farm. And of course I took photos. Of the landscape, the farm itself, and some with my friend as an extra. But no, I did not photograph the two sisters and the brother. Well, I captured one photo of him from behind walking towards a shed.

Why didn’t I take any more? I was thinking about it all the time, but couldn’t muster the courage to push the camera in front of their faces. I just didn’t have the guts. Today it seems ludicrous, but then I couldn’t make myself do it, despite the fact that they were the sweetest people on earth.

To this day, I do so severely regret not having documented their lives. Today it’s history. No one, not in Norway, does farming in places without infrastructure, having to carry everything on their backs, and nothing like motorized cultivation.

In fact, I went back twelve years later with the intention to document their lives. But it was too late. By then I had established myself as a photojournalist and knew what I had missed. When I returned, a road had been built to the farm. An urbanization project was underway, new house popping up all over the valley. One sister and the brother stilled lived at the farm, now in their early 90’s. One sister had passed away. Of course, I photographed them and had a last, by lovely time with the siblings. But the historic opportunity had vanished.

So, the moral is: Don’t postpone or don’t let go of photographing when you have an opportunity. You will regret it later on.