This book is dedicated to a region in Sweden and its hospitable people who have shown me a new world full of opportunities. Together we have experienced happiness, grief, natural disasters and hard work, all of which have contributed to an understanding, respect and love of life.
A Meeting
Being a visual person is a great privilege − the fact that it is possible to see and transform even the most prosaic of things into something to believe in, something that makes other stop and consider. Being able to see potential has a variety of uses.
A camera is in many ways rewarding because it only has one eye. It lets you cut away all irrelevancies, select the moment and focus on the essential.
In this place in Småland, where the Nissan River winds its way between valley and forest, something special takes place. The changes in temperature create wind and mist, and at times some ecstatic almost magical scenarios take place.
I am a lover of the ecstatic and the magical, and right here it takes place bathed in a light and atmosphere that are far removed from the humdrum of daily life.
Some of Sweden's greatest painters, such as Anders Zorn and John Bauer, were equally preoccupied by the light that fascinates here. They captured the light in their painting. In my case, the brush is the camera without wanting to draw any other parallels.
But we are all driven by the same sustenance, the same amazement in nature − amazement because it is so sensually beautiful and captivating for the imagination.
For part of the year, the light here is limited and when it finally arrives, nature comes alive. The light is a creating force, which the camera communicates, communicating the life-giving elements of the light and capturing a moment of beauty.
Winter provides a different expression and in many ways it is my favourite season. In all its simplicity, winter is a poetic narrator, cloaked in snow and hiding a secret it will soon reveal.
Feeling the silence of a winter's day, with the snow gently falling and watching the different crystals in the snowflake fills one with happiness. The landscape lights up. The beech is virtually camouflaged by its white trunk, in stark contrast to the splendid costume of the spruce's dark needles.
Regardless of the season, this meeting is a turning point, an eye-opener to a reality which was just found as an incomplete visual fantasy. When the day dawns, the day awakens and the transition from night becomes quite unique. The sun usually shines on the dawn and so a new tale begins.
Nature alone is a composition. Everything balances in careful harmony and through the calming recognisability that comes from a thousand-year-old existence, the eye can always find a resting point in this saga.
The camera communicates the artistic language of nature, and by selecting and knowing my surroundings I can form it in a way that reflects a moment of the visible reality that many may not see.
Bjorn Wennerwald/Visual Artist and writer.
A camera is in many ways rewarding because it only has one eye. It lets you cut away all irrelevancies, select the moment and focus on the essential.
In this place in Småland, where the Nissan River winds its way between valley and forest, something special takes place. The changes in temperature create wind and mist, and at times some ecstatic almost magical scenarios take place.
I am a lover of the ecstatic and the magical, and right here it takes place bathed in a light and atmosphere that are far removed from the humdrum of daily life.
Some of Sweden's greatest painters, such as Anders Zorn and John Bauer, were equally preoccupied by the light that fascinates here. They captured the light in their painting. In my case, the brush is the camera without wanting to draw any other parallels.
But we are all driven by the same sustenance, the same amazement in nature − amazement because it is so sensually beautiful and captivating for the imagination.
For part of the year, the light here is limited and when it finally arrives, nature comes alive. The light is a creating force, which the camera communicates, communicating the life-giving elements of the light and capturing a moment of beauty.
Winter provides a different expression and in many ways it is my favourite season. In all its simplicity, winter is a poetic narrator, cloaked in snow and hiding a secret it will soon reveal.
Feeling the silence of a winter's day, with the snow gently falling and watching the different crystals in the snowflake fills one with happiness. The landscape lights up. The beech is virtually camouflaged by its white trunk, in stark contrast to the splendid costume of the spruce's dark needles.
Regardless of the season, this meeting is a turning point, an eye-opener to a reality which was just found as an incomplete visual fantasy. When the day dawns, the day awakens and the transition from night becomes quite unique. The sun usually shines on the dawn and so a new tale begins.
Nature alone is a composition. Everything balances in careful harmony and through the calming recognisability that comes from a thousand-year-old existence, the eye can always find a resting point in this saga.
The camera communicates the artistic language of nature, and by selecting and knowing my surroundings I can form it in a way that reflects a moment of the visible reality that many may not see.
Bjorn Wennerwald/Visual Artist and writer.