Monday, 21 January 2013

ÅKERSBERG • Food & Kitchen Shoot • Thursday 10th and Saturday 12th January 2013

On thursday and saturday I spent 2 half days photographing food and the kitchen at the well know restaurant and hotel Åkersberg in Höör, Sweden. Åkersberg is an old mansion from early 16th century with quite a history and is now an restaurant and hotel owned and run by the Swedish Church.
6 months ago the well known swedish chef P-G Hansson was contracted to renew and revive the restaurant and take the kitchen from salad buffet to a more refined gourmet restaurant. I had the pleasure to shoot P-G and the staff the two last days of his contract period. 
I have never been in a restaurant kitchen before and was most impressed of the quality of worksmanship and high speed of all staff working here as a team. During these two days I made sure that my camera was set on a fast shutter and to be in the right place at the right time ...and also be sure to eat their lunch which was excellent indeed!







Above: Chef student Oliver Fredrik(same names as me)fries mushrooms & pour gravy on a dish.

         Below: Chef and Food Consultant P-G Hansson tells a story to the staff



Sunday, 20 January 2013

LUR • Photoshoot with Experimental Band • Thursday 10th January 2013

On thursday evening (just arriving in Malmö from the shoot at Åkersberg) I prepared my studio for a photo shoot with two guys from Växjö in Sweden. They later moved to Malmö and started a band a couple a years ago and are now playing in venues in Sweden and around the world aswell.
Their name is Lur and they play experimental music with influences from rock, trance/rave, folk. They have also work on an concept with hand knitted stage clothes and are playing on all sorts of instruments as; drums, synths, childrens toys etc. They arrived with cab just as I had set the studio and went into costume straight away and after 2 hours of hammering the studio flashes we got some pretty good pictures.


Well if you didn´t know, Lur is actually from outer space. 

In between sessions I had the possibility to disarm them of their musical armory and took some shots of their weapons of mass-distortion.



Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Photo shoot with Ciilja & CRIME CITY CLOTHING • Thursday 19th December 2012

Ciilja is a girl who had a hair extension & tattoo parlor at Friisgatan in Malmö some years ago. It was a pretty cool place with interior and objects with a great mix of punk, goth, kitsch etc. She left the shop recently and moved to a place more central and has also started her own clothes brand, Crime City Clothing. 
I thougt that she would be a cool model for the last Everyday Majesty project photo shoot. Got in touch with her already in November and after the shoot was over at Biograf Spegeln we had a photo session in my studio at Järnvägsgatan in Limhamn just before Christmas.




Tuesday, 8 January 2013

EVERYDAY MAJESTY • A Photo project on Charity & Inner Beauty • Monday 10 December to Sunday 16th December 2012

So Finally! After one year of planning the photo project EVERYDAY MAJESTY was made and completed. The original idea was that I wanted to do a big art event for the annual and national charity event Musikhjälpen.
The concept I thought about and contacted the project managers of Swedish TV/Radio in August 2011 was that I was going to photograph people with a replica of the State Diadem/Crown of Queen Elizabeth II, imitating the famous portrait of her on the British stamps (coins, banknotes etc.). The photograph which was used for the stamps was taken by the famous photographer John Hedgcoe which work I have been familiar to since I was small. The photo session took place at Buckingham Palace, London 22nd June in 1966, where John Hedgecoe rigged a studio for one day just for the session and made the shoot with Queen in different ligt settings. The photos were selected by the Queen herself and after was used as a original for the making of the postal stamp. The stamps were used throughout the British Empire and is considered to be the most reproduced photograph of all time estimating an edition of 200 Billion stamps. The original photographs were never meant to be official portraits or shown to the public.

My idea was to build a studio somewhere near the Stortorget (most central public square) in Malmö where the Radio and TV event was going to take place. And photograph people who are donating money to Musikhjälpen wearing the crown. The concept is that everyone can be a royalty and that your deeds and actions in life is what makes your character ..not your title or your surname.

After writing a project proposal which was accepted by Swedish TV/Radio I got to work.
Contacted a crown and jewelry maker in London who promised to have the replica of the crown ready in 5 weeks. I searched for a place at the location and made a deal with the cinema Biograf Spegeln (just at the main square) that I could rig a studio and photograph in their foyer / entrance. I also made sponsor deals with Scandinavian Photo for assisting me with studio equipment and with printers Arkitektkopia for flyers and banner for the project.

After a lot of work with plannig, meetings, sketching etc. It was finally time to build the studio which was done on the day of the event start, Monday 10th December. All went well and the first day was a bit slow. I created a Facebook group where the participants could collect their photos and made a virtual system for media and image logistics.

A huge banner was made at the printers that was selected and later hung in front of the cinema (se image below) and flyers was distributed around the city.
Second day I was interviewed in National TV and Radio and suddenly people started to drop in. Each day more and more people came by and the word was spreadin. 

After one whole week of photographing for charity I had made a lot of portraits of many contributors and collected a larger amount of money for charity. Finally I closed down the studio on Sunday the 16th December and was more than satisfied over the outcome of the project.

Photo taken by myself (tripod) for the article in photo magazine Fotosidan


Above: The logo for the charity event

Below: The photographs taken of Queen Elizabeth II by John Hedgecoe at Buckingham Palace 22nd of June 1966 & the final stamps






Above: The entrance of the cinema where I was photographing

Below: Some of the portraits taken













Tuesday 11th December 2012
Interview in Swedish National Television SVT 2 and Radio P3


Above: Screenshoots of my interview from the website of the Swedish Television. 
If you want to read it ...click on the link below.

Click Below for:


Friday 14th of December
Interview and write up on largest website for Photography in Scandinavia • www.fotosidan.se


Above: Screenshoots of the website Fotosidan and the article about the project. 
If you want to read it ...click on the link below.

Monday, 7 January 2013

The Season´s Last Day Photographing at the Horse Racing Track • Wednesday 5th December 2012

Today was the last day of gallop horse racing at Jägersro, Malmö Horse Racing Track. After the last race I closed down the camera, computers, printer and locked up the office for some vacation after a good seasons work.


Sunday, 6 January 2013

fw-photography Showroom & Exhibition • Sunday 2nd December 2012

In late November I was asked to have an exhibition in a window store front studio in central Limhamn, Malmö. The day after the request I looked at the place, on Saturday 24th November and on Monday the 26th I printed a whole exhibition in the span of one day and the next day, Tuesday I transported the prints to the framers. On friday that same week I collected and transported the framed images and bought furniture and transported it to the new space. On Saturday I transported my photo studio equipment and started building and installing my work on the walls until late at night.
On Sunday the 2nd of December it was the big Christmas window display in Malmö and also I had the opening of the exhibition in combination with a photo shoot in the same space. The work looked good and it went well with a lot of visitors. An hectic week for sure with a lot of work done!


Saturday, 5 January 2013

Lectures on Art & Photography • Monday 3rd December 2012

When I studied at my Foundation Course in Fine Arts in the early 90s at "Konstlinjen" at Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan in Malmö. My two teachers there, Jan-Åke Andersson and Dimitar Rangachew inspired me to lecture. Since I graduated and moved from London back to Malmö I have since then been lecturing every year at different universities, art and design schools, extra curricular courses, museums and societies.

The 19th of December 2012 I lectured at Islamic Center in Malmö. Here is my Facebook Status Update I did on that same day.

"Im lecturing quite often. The other day I lectured at Islamic Center in Malmö. 
I enter a room full of young women/girls. They are all wearing headscarfs to avoid showing their hair. Some of them 
are wearing their outdoor jackets ..indoors. I walk up to the front of the room, plug my computer into the projector and click up the first image of the slideshow.
The photograph is black and white and shows a sunny day at the horse racing track. It´s the 4th of June 1913 and it´s the Grand Derby at Epsom outside London. Most of England´s nobility and royalty are present.
The photograph is a quick snap-shot and in the foreground the photographer has captured the event of the day. It is the horse of King George V …frozen in mid air, falling to the ground with the legs and hoofs up in the air and the body just hitting the track. Above the horse a womans derby hat is in the air. Under the horse, Emily Davidson is just about to be killed by the weight of the horse. I talk about the image and that the person being killed was a Suffragette, a womans right activist who sacrificed her life for womans right to vote for parliament.


The whole room is dead silent. I click to the next image ...look at my watch ...and now there are 42 minutes and 36 images left about; democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of religious views, womans rights, anti organized crime, anti violence etc."




My photo of Islamic Center, Malmö after the lecture

Photo of King George Vs horse falling on suffragette Emily Davison at Epsom Horse Racing, London 1913

Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Natura Morte Exhibition in Helsinki, Finland ..Off I Go!! • Thursday 9th November - 2nd December 2012

Finally after weeks of planning, printing and framing I am set of to Helsinki early morning Wednesday the 7th of November. I take the train to Stockholm and manage to have lunch at Fotografiska with a friend and take the ferry that same evening from Stockholm to Finland. I arrive on Thursday morning and after a quick coffee with the gallery curator I install the images in 4 hours time manage to check in to the hotel and back just in time for the opening. After the opening the whole party continues at a bar owned by Finnish movie director Aki Kaurismäki. 
Friday I have a I go sightseeing in excellent Helsinki and see some lovely 20th century Jugend architecture, art galleries and have a coffee in spectacular and minimal Panorama Bar in the top of a tower.
On Saturday I visit some more galleries and take the famous (infamous?) Finland Ferry and experience the very special atmosphere there in their Casino Bar. Sunday I´m back in Stockholm and after a lunch with a friend at Restaurang Panorama on top of Kulturhuset I take the train back to Malmö and arrive late ...exhausted and happy :-)

Photo showing the deck at the Finland Ferry and a photo at the Stockholm docks just leaving the harbour in the evening

The entrance of Gallery Hippolyte, an old cinema turned into a gallery for contemporary photography

Installing the exhibition on the same day of arrival 4 hours before the opening. Here I totally fall in love with the laser leveler borrowed from the gallery. Excellent stuff, and after installing so many exhibitions during the years ..arranging and hanging pictures suddenly has become a pleasure. Im going to get me one of these for sure


The  gallery interior and exhibition

















Splendid view over central Helsinki from amazing panorama bar at Art Nouveau Hotel Torni


Life boats on upper deck of the ferry from Helsinki back to Sweden

Tuesday, 1 January 2013

1st step towards photo project for national charity event • Monday 1st October 2012

Last summer I had an idea about a photo project which I then contacted the Swedish Radio/Television about in late August 2011. It was an project for their annual and national charity event Musikhjälpen and they liked the idea and loved the concept. Due to other activities that autumn the project was put on ice.
Again late September 2012, one year later, I contacted the same project managers for Swedish TV/Radio and wrote a project plan which was accepted at once. The same week I contacted sponsors for photo equipment and for printed media which were all in favor of the project.
Here I have just had an meeting with the Cinema Spegeln at central Stortorget in Malmö where the photo project will take place in mid December. We have just had som coffee and made som decisions, here I am shooting reference location photos and am taking measurements and have drawn a simple floorplan. Finally things are Rolling!!