Book

I en särskild sekund by Magnus Andersson | Make Your Own Book

OK, it is ready, my first attempt at a Blurb book. Its been great fun making it but, surprisingly, a lot of work too. I had a lot of help from my friend Lucia who handled all the InDesign stuff, so a million thanks goes out to her!

For those of you that aren't too familiar with Swedish, all I can say is that the poems were written by a younger, more bright-eyed me, around the time when two friends and I made a fantastic road trip across Sweden in 1993. We were all 20 years old and I had a Konica Autoreflex T from the early '70's with me and I shot a few rolls of Tri-X as we stumbled along the festivals, lakes, islands, camps, cars and bicycles.

Although this really is a personal project I have made it publicly available for you guys to take a peek at - enjoy!

Raid

Police hat on the dashboard of our van. © Magnus Andersson

The picture above is from a police raid that I went on this morning but sadly - for reasons I can't divulge - it was called off. A bit like all the blog posts that I had planned from Perpignan haven't materialised either. I will try to do better, maybe find some time this weekend, next week or before Christmas at least. I call it the 'Perpignan effect'. The festival experience was great but you feel a bit empty afterwards. Behind the scenes there is work on my homepage plus book finishing still going on so hopefully you'll be updated again soon.

Another blast from the past

A young and innocent Mattias sometime around 1993. © Martin Andersson

While scanning images from the previously mentioned book project, I came across this little gem of a picture of photographer & good friend Mattias Johansson. At first I didn't recognise him at all because this was on a roll of film which had the tail end of my book project on it, and I couldn't for the life of me remember taking this picture on that trip.

Then it dawned on me that I must have left the film in the camera, only for my brother to bring the camera on one of his and Mattias' trips, so my brother - Martin - is most likely the photographer in this case, because me and Mattias don't really hang out unless we are in the south of France.

I'd say that he is still a teenager there, about 18 years old and still unspoilt. Above we see him as an binocular-wearing young boy, but what I really want to know is: how did he become the bearded maniac photographer that he is today? Answers on a postcard, please.


Mattias wonders how he got here. Perpignan, 2009 © Magnus Andersson

One from the upcoming book

Young lovers embrace, Gotland, Sweden, ca 1992-3. © Magnus Andersson

Taken on a Konica Autoreflex II with a 35/2.0 attached, sometime during the summer of love, 1993. Possibly 1992 even. The light meter got busted on this trip, but it didnt matter, shooting from the hip and using the inside of film packages for reference, most of these shots are salvageable. Its been great fun looking at these old neg's and the contact sheets, and even more fun when you put them in the scanner, drawing out old gem's like the one above.

Two friends (both seen above) and myself went on a road trip, first by car and then by bike, from west to east and then back again. We were around 19-20 years old and had a total blast, freewheeling through festivals and camp sites, stopping wherever we felt like it.

This Konica kit was the first that I ever tried serious photography on and I am pleased that it is still in my possession. What is really nice is that it was purchased sometime around 1969-70, when my dad correctly guessed that a Brownie camera just wouldnt cut it when it came to producing good family snaps. Thank you, dad!

I started using it in 1987-88 and I also used my dad's 6x6 fold-up camera, from when he was a teenager, but lets face it, even a Lomo looks better than the pictures from that old 6x6 (nameless) camera. The Konica was different and dad had got some nice glass for it too. I started buying 30m rolls of Tri-X and shooting to my hearts content. One or two rolls have gotten lost, but that's the nature of film, its not forever. Its more organic, it ages, literally breathes and finally expires. Cant say that I miss it all that much, but digital certainly lacks a certain something.

I'm hoping to publish this private project in the next few weeks and there will possibly be some more info here on this later, but regardless, much thanks needs to go out to my designer Lucia Dehez who has put a lot of effort in on this project. Merci!