Kuva: Peter Forsgård
I photograph everyday life and objects because I'm curious and interested in the world around me. I try to stay humble towards people and to honour the scenery, even when I want to capture an oppressive atmosphere or subject.
Why to I take photographs? What do I seek?
Using photography as a vehicle of expression is an excellent instrument because every viewer has their own response to the content and story; everyone can have an individual experience. I feel that contrary opinions should be respected. A picture can be good or bad, beautiful or obscene, kind or cruel, just as the reality can be as well; it is defined by the individual reaction of each observer.A picture can be culturally bonded or beyond any culture, a picture can bind different cultures together or set them in contrast apart. A picture makes - from a distance in possibly both time and space - a contact between the photographer and the observer. A picture is also somehow immutable and yet, on the other hand, each time it's examined it is also unique, dependent upon the circumstances of that given moment in the life of the viewer.
I try to snatch the reality, the passing moment which can never be recaptured in real life, but yet can be caught, pinned and frozen in a single picture.
An image can simultaneously capture and liberate. A picture has a permanency that isn't possible in life itself. In real life you can never to go back, the past is a closed door; but with the help of a photograph the moment becomes eternal, ever accessible.
Concerning photographs and their manipulation
It's said that the digital processing of photographs is the modern day equivalent of the darkroom of old. With the current and ever evolving technical resources available now on an increasingly wide scale, it's also quite possible, easy even, to improve or "correct" many things that were not possible with the manual, arguably obsolete proofing techniques of the past.It's my belief that there is intrinsic value in the "old ways", an innate integrity in the generation of "real" photographs in the traditional sense.
A picture that hasn't been manipulated is real documentary - a fact - so much more than a mere atmospheric, a mood, or an artistic impression. And yet a manipulated and aggrandized picture can also be valuable; if nothing else, it portrays the vanities and beatific ideals of its creator. For my part, for example, I enjoy building collages that, like any "photoshopped" picture, depart from "real" photography in the sense that the final picture doesn't directly correspond to the actual source of the image.
I feel that a manipulated photograph is like a painting that has been painted with parts of reality. The object and its authenticity have their source and foundation only in the creator's point of view. The impact of the manipulation is much broader than that of traditional "darkroom" photography because the scope of manipulation available at the mere click of a button has no boundary.
Collages, like any manipulation, have always split people's opinion, and will always continue to do so, but I feel that they do have an important place to play in the creativity and expressing of new ideas. They are a device to produce surrealist images to provoke and inspire that otherwise would be impossible.
Why would an artist not paint with photographs if it were possible?