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I’ve been typing and deleting words for this blog over and over again. I’ve written in the middle of the night, waking up in London at 3am, thinking that I  just found the right words – but they were written in an emotional half asleep state that I didn’t want to publish them. So I deleted and wrote a new version, another late hour after coming home from a night with friends and got all emotional again. So I deleted them once more. How can you address your personal feelings in public without sounding like you were fishing for support, when you don’t even have real problems. I read stories of other people’s lives all around the globe and fate and think how can I even think that I’m having troubles in life – don’t be such a loser and stop whining. Look at my life. It would be total hypocritical and self beweeping to post such a set of photographs and say it actually makes me sad.

Maybe I have to say just one thing – Life through the lens is never showing all sides, especially when you have to select the images, decide which ones to show. You can always pretend having a great life when you highlight only the moments where it seems like it. We all have a long fight ahead, a fight to be heard, accepted and rewarded for what we do in life and it’s sometimes hard not to give it all up and say fuck it. I try to stay honest and personal, documenting my life but it’s just that perspective of how I want to see it. So it’s always a sugarcoated version. Like, I don’t take many photos of the things I don’t look at. Life is not a fairy tale and I will try even more to include that in my work.

But now, let the photos do the talk.

I keep documenting my life like an addict. I try to find truth in the photos I take and I while I look at them I’m realizing it is the same story again. The difference is that it just looks  different. I lose friends and I find new ones, I get to see places and I have to leave again and by taking photos you fool yourself in believing you can’t lose them. I’ve been doing this the last 10 years now. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like without having all these photos. How would I memorize my life without them. My head is exploding with all these memories attached to these photos. All I do is freeze time, like homages to moments, homages to people in my life. It’s a gift and it’s a burden at the same time. It’s harder to let go, It’s harder to accept things that changed, when you have such beautiful reminders you can look at. These photographs have no power to change anything. I feel betrayed by them, I feel naive thinking I could preserve things. Photos don’t have that power. They just take you back in time where you can’t go back, all in your imagination. When I started doing all this more than 10 years ago, I wasn’t prepared to reach this point of overstraining.

comments

  1. you made my day!! Sehr schoen, besonders die Rollei’s Frames! Jetzt warte ich schon auf Dezember Blog :) gruesse

    Comment by Domagoj — November 12, 2016 @ 10:00 am

  2. The blog becomes more and more a photographic version of a Knausgaard book. I like it. A lot. Looking forward to the next 10 years. Cheers!

    Comment by Kay — November 12, 2016 @ 1:56 pm

  3. Long time visitor, first time commenter.

    I like your street work but I especially like your personal work and the way it seems to come naturally. I have a hard time with that, but every time I see your portraits or moments with friends it makes me want to keep trying.

    I’ve always enjoyed your pictures, but for some reason today, those very personal shots resonated differently with me (in a good way)

    cheers

    Comment by Jerome — November 12, 2016 @ 6:42 pm

  5. Hi, Severin! What kind of scanner do You use to scan your negatives? V700?

    Cheers!

    BB

    Comment by BB — November 17, 2016 @ 1:31 am

  6. Your words moved me, your pictures even more.

    We are all desperately trying to hold on to these fleeting moments that seem to rush past us, leaving hardly any impression. We humans live in these brief periods where everything is new and fascinating, the first day or week in an unfamiliar place, and then it all drowns into sameness. For most people years slip by without anything to hold onto. We photographers are privileged, we keep looking up when everyone else just stares at the ground rushing to the next appointment. We stretch time with it, make certain moments last a little bit longer also in the process of capturing them. And although we gain certain magical power over these moments, we still can’t prevent them from slipping away in the end. We are left with something more concrete than fleeting impressions and this can be good. But then sometimes when we stole some moments that we can’t relive, the pictures become like open wounds. Don’t despair over them. Just be happy that you managed to create something beautiful, even if it hurts.

    Keep stretching time, move on to the next roll, you’ll be fine.

    Comment by Lilly Schwartz — November 17, 2016 @ 9:13 am

  7. Mir ist aufgefallen dass ich tatsächlich seit 2006 deinen Blog lese. Wüsste sonst keine Seite die mich seit so langer Zeit so packt jedesmal. Grüße aus Nürnberg-

    as always <3.

    Comment by seb — November 17, 2016 @ 9:51 am

  8. Severin, dass ist dein schönster Blogeintrag.

    Du erzählst wunderbare Alltagsgeschichten, teilst Freude, Trauer, Leid und vor allem Intime Momente.

    Ich glaube, wir alle die hier mitlesen, sind unglaublich dankbar für deine Arbeit, die du hier postest.

    Ganz besonders liebe ich deine Serifos Fotos, ich habe dieses Jahr 2 Wochen mit meiner Freundin dort verbracht (wir leben hier in Griechenland). Wundervolle Erinnerungen, aufgenommen durch deinen Blickwinkel.

    Ein ganz, ganz großes Dankeschön an dich.

    M.

    Comment by M. — November 19, 2016 @ 8:47 am

  9. Have always loved your work since 2008, your photos always provide some sort of escape. I still think they’re the best. Sure it’s nice to still see familiar faces (like your dad! Who’s aging beautifully!) but there’s beauty in knowing many things have changed over the years. It only means you’re just having that human experience. Thank you for welcoming us into your life. It’s humbling when you really think about it. Love from Malaysia.

    Comment by Sher — November 21, 2016 @ 12:47 am

  10. I could copy and paste your entire blog post (and replace photos with mine, quite mediocre ones).
    Those ten years flew by so quickly, blogs were big and died out, even fakebook seems a desert place these days. And I’m just not willing invest my efforts in instant services. Even though I’m a digital shooter I want my photographs to last. Even though I’m an introvert I want to explain myself. Even though I promised myself to let it go I am returning to my own blog. And even though I know it’s a finely curated presentation of my life – it is my life.
    Thank you for your massive blog posts and unimaginable amount of time you dedicate to it. Appreciate it.

    Comment by Lenart Senica — November 26, 2016 @ 9:40 pm

  11. Eine starke Serie, insbesondere die Schwarz-Weiß Bilder gefallen mir gut.

    Gerade der Analog-Look und teilweise Verschwommenheit der Bilder passt sehr gut.

    Comment by Sebastian — December 4, 2016 @ 2:53 pm

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