Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

ErikSvedbergZelman

Content

Artist Statement Single Photo excerpts

City Photography

Brassai Inspiration

Black Portraits

White Portraits

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

City’s are much like photographs in the sense that they only are as good as the story’s they create, and that their last stage of cre-ation is in the eye of the beholder.

A city and nature have a lot in common when you think about it. The way they grow, thrive and then adapt to change. Through this growth they develop different perspectives. Perspectives that vary from viewer to viewer keeping the city interesting. Every now and then a perspective is so strong it gives you a feeling, an experience. These perspectives that are charged with strong emotion are very important to share in order to keep a city intriguing. They con-stantly remind people that there are many ways of looking at things. Capturing these perspectives gives people a story told from the eyes of a fellow being.

The city that inspires me most is my hometown, New York City. The constant development, the timeless essence it has as its route and the way you can harvest a whole new feeling by walking down a street a second time gives it endless possibility. Looking at the legacy left behind by photographers like Jack Manning, Richard Avedon, Rebecca Lepkoff and the rest of the “Photo League”, have inspired me to find the unseen perspectives and tell a story of my own.

Moving to Europe later in life, I found myself inspired by the cul-ture a city can be built on. Gothenburg, the city I moved to, is a city very proud of itself and its heritage, which is shown openly in itself. Applying the inspiration New York gave me, the drive to search for endless possibility and new perspective, to a European city like Gothenburg, has led me to inspire MYSELF by constantly discov-ering and adventuring in whatever city I am in and in myself.

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “City Composition”

Half and Half

From Project “City Composition”

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “City Composition”

Empire Rises

From Project “City Composition”

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “City Composition” Featured in exhibit“Bella Notte”

When analyzing a photograph, I always wonder about the story. Both the story behind what is on the actual picture and the story of why/how the photographer got to taking the pho-tograph. In many cases the story is best untold, leaving the beholder to wonder about the mystery, but in some cases if the story is told, it gives the photograph life. This is one of those cases.For along time I wanted to take this picture. Gothenburg’s all seeing eye, the “Eriksberg Crane”, has been captured in many perspectives. Being seen from the whole city, it is an of-ten-photographed object. I was always fascinated by its mon-

strosity and architectural composition and I knew there was one vantage point the crane never had been photographed from. After pondering for a while on how I would reach this vantage point, I decided to go for it. I set out at night, knowing that if anyone saw me, I would be stopped. Arriving at the crane I had to think fast about how I would scale it. I took a ladder from a nearby dock, leaned it against the base and climbed to the beginning of the stair-way that would take me to my vantage point. As I climbed the stairway, higher and higher, the wind got more and more intimidating. I have never felt a fear of heights, but the combi-

nation of the rickety stairs, the wind and the fearful freedom I felt as I got higher, had me shaking. When I got to the van-tage point I was scaling to, I set up my tripod, mounted my camera and took the shot. The fear subsided as I came to the realization that I completed what I had set out to do. Seeing the image on the display, my fear turned to adrenaline and excitement. I had told my story, captured my perspective and completed my goal. This is my inspiration to photography. Being able to tell my story´s and let the image remember what I will not.

God over Gothenburg

Honestly, one of my biggest inspirations isn’t even a photographer. The thoughts and way of creating Hemmingway had dazzle me to say the least. He had style to creating, that I take into account when creating a lot of my images. Analyzing his words have helped me create story’s in many of my projects. He gave me the insight that in many cases, less is more.

He called it the “Iceberg Theory,” which is a great description of his style. Essentially, he gives you the facts. Those hard facts are the tip of the iceberg floating above water. Everything else, the supporting struc-

ture, floats beneath the water, out of sight from the observer. This can be taken into account when creating an image. By giving the observer the most important and leaving out the context, a mystery is created that in many cases if done right create a strong emotion. The nothing in the image pushes the image to its full potential. What is NOT in the image, gives it the story and the mystery.

From Project “Iceberg Technique”Featured in “Bella Notte”

Sleeping Beauty

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Iceberg Technique”Featured in “Bella Notte”

After a while of my regular routine of planning out photography escapades, I started yearning for something more. At the time I did not know what, but I felt that something was missing. The spontaneity that came with first learning to use a camera had trickled through my fingers. I needed new, beautiful, spontaneous inspiration. After reading Fiesta: The sun also rises, I developed a love affair with 1920s Paris. My interest in the town, in that day in age, led me to stumble upon one of my biggest pho-tographic inspirations, Gyula Halasz, or as he called himself, Brassai. His photographs gave me visually what Hemingway had given me through literature. His work was hardboiled and mysterious. He used light in a way that I could heavily relate to. The way he used it as a tool to create a feeling of mystique. The way he used it to paint with. The way he played with it, taking into account the fog that laid itself over Paris by night. In my mind, he created a whole philosophy on bending light.

“It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Brassaï became interested in photography as a way to record encounters on his nightly walks through the streets of Paris. He enjoyed these long strolls after dark and began carrying a camera and tripod in 1929. Two years later, he compiled some of these pho-tographs in a book entitled Paris de nuit (Words by Steve Meltzer)” I treasure Paris de nuit very much. The way it revolutionized the way you could docu-ment a city by focusing on the little things. A perspective I had not seen earlier. It in-spired me to use spontaneity in my photography and led me to a fascination of the night. I started taking nightly strolls, capturing the underlying aspects of a city, boiling it down to the little nooks and crannies, which I have come to love. Taking control of and paint-ing with light, before and after a shot is taken, to create an emotion routed in a city.

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Inner City Nights”Featured in “Bella Notte”

From Project “Inner City Nights” Featured in “Bella Notte”

Railway Landing

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Inner City Nights” Featured in “Bella Notte”

From Project “Inner City Nights” Featured in “Bella Notte”

Last and Lonely

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Inner City Nights” Featured in “Bella Notte”

Natten

Some of the times, editing the image is what makes it blossom. The possibility of creating a story after the im-age is taken creates endless possibilities, one of which is the possibility to take “paint-ing with light” even further. When I create an image, I take help from a program called Lightroom. This pro-gram gives you full control of the light in the picture. Using its tools as a painter uses theirs, I have the pos-sibility to truly create the

emotion I experienced when perceiving a perspective.

Taking the iceberg tech-nique into account, the tools lightroom has given me, have helped me lift forth the importance in every image, and bend light to my liking. In many cases it helps me use the nothing in the image, to push it to its full poten-tial.

From Project “Inner City Nights”

Natten två

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Inner City Nights”

For a while I dwelled on the hardboiled street style of photog-raphy that Brassai had inspired me to create. I even used many of the images I created in that style, in a photography exhibit I held called “Bella Notte”. It focused on different aspects of the night, and was the result of the inspiration from my influences. With the exhibit coming to its end I had to start spawning on new ideas. New ways I could keep developing and establishing myself as a photographer. I was not finished with the Brassai style yet though; I just started trying to find new ways of ex-pressing it.

During that time, I discovered a lot of work done by Richard Avedon. I had known who he was for a long time, but never looked into his work. When I started studying his work I devel-oped a fascination for portraits. I was fascinated by the fact that a personality in a photograph could bring about a as strong, if not stronger story than a landscape or city image.

It was while I accompanied a friend on a stroll through the sub-urbs of our city one night an idea came to me. We stopped for a cigarette under the light of a streetlamp. As he smoked, I noticed the gracious beauty the smoke had as it rose and the perfection of the rings he made as he played around. It was all captured so well by the streetlamp. It kept the important relevant, and left out the irrelevant. I then had the urge to capture the beauty I had witnessed in the smoke.

In this project I relied a lot on light. As I had seen the streetlamp do, I applied light to the relevant and left the irrelevant dark. In lightroom I continued to paint with the light, finishing the complete eradication of the irrelevant in my image. I found that in black and white, this created a beautiful contrast between light and dark, which was exactly what I was after. I had found a way to combine the inspiration I had gotten from people like Brassai, Hemingway and Avedon, which led me to start work-ing on a new exhibit that will be active later this spring.

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Iceberg Portraits”

From Project “Iceberg Portraits”

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Iceberg Portraits”

After working on the portrait project for some time, I decided I wanted to ad some contrast to it. I wanted the project to have as much contrast as the pictures had. In the meantime I kept searching for inspiration for my portrait project. My search led me to one Pho-tographer in particular named Ken Ohara. His project “One” was a refreshing find. He stripped his photographs down to the personality, which lives for the most part in the face. Many times, you can’t even see if the portrait is of a man or a woman, it’s just a personality.

I was very intrigued by his way of taking portraits, which led me to the white themed images in the proj-ect. By photographing a portrait against a white back-ground I realized the contrast it created lifted the personality in the face. It was a combination of play-ing with the lighting, and sitting with lightroom that I finalized my idea though. I stripped the images of everything except the essentials to keeping the person-ality and only the personality. The result was exactly what I was after when trying to broaden my project. It gave the project as a whole, more life, but kept the ir-relevant out of the picture.

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Iceberg Portraits”

From Project “Iceberg Portraits”

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

From Project “Iceberg Portraits”

Shown in this book are samples from a few proj-ects. Having studied photography for three years, I am constantly planning or working on new projects. I chose to use the images I did because they were part of projects that helped me start to define my style of photography, at the moment. I don’t think I will ever be finished defining myself though. I take up new interests and aspects within photography as I go along. The projects featured are just one thread of inspiration I followed. I will never be finished developing.

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” -Hemingway

(Turn to the next page to see single photo excerpts from different projects.)

Following are single photo excerpts from a variety of projects. I chose to include these images because I feel the have given me great emotion when created. These images are landmarks for my learning and development, and are important to understanding how I work.

The first photograph defines a moment when I first started experimenting with light. This photo is taken in the dead of night, at around 1 am. The sky was as dark as a cloudy night usually gets, no sunset, no sunrise. In this image I used a long exposure (about 20 sec-onds) to let the streetlamps from down the hill paint the clouded sky with light. At first this was a mistake, as I was trying to take a portrait of a comrade, in a meadow-like set-ting. I set the exposure time to about 10 sec-onds, signaled the shutter and flashed him. I noticed how bright the sky was, in compari-son to how dark it should have been at this hour, so I decided to take advantage of the anomaly. I set the exposure to 20 seconds and discarded the flash. This is the result.

Photographs two and three are taken from a long exposure landscape project. At the time I had just started experimenting with long ex-posure and was very fascinated by the beau-ty of the night sky. It was also a time when I had just started becoming fascinated with Brassai’s work, so naturally I combined the purposeful disposition of light and long ex-posure landscape shots. Here, I had also just starting to create a work flow in lightroom, and understanding the endless possibility’s to image creation, with it as a tool.

The last photograph stands for itself. It is not part of any project. This is an image I took when I had just started mastering the camera and studying the dynamics of photography. Here I put down work and thought on the emotion an image can create and in my opin-ion succeeded.

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

Featured in “Bella Notte”

What time

From “Onsala Natt”Featured in “Bella Notte”

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement

Three and a Half Cows

Where or when a photo-graph is created, is a ques-tion I often ponder. Sig-naling the shutter is not an answer I can relate to. Nat-urally, it is at that moment light comes together to cre-ate an image, but that is only the first step. A photograph is something so much more.

A photograph is a story, cap-tured in a singular moment in time, which will exist forever and remember long after we have forgotten. As Voyeur put it: You capture light, the enchantress, and bend her to your likeness. In my mind Voyeur means that as a photographer I

am an artist, and just like a painter paints with a brush, I paint with light. For me, a photograph is as good as its story, and is truly created in the eye of the beholder.

Artists Statement