John Håkansson - I närheten

Epilogue

The Photographs are shot within the close proximity of where I have lived the past ten years. I started to take the photographs shortly after moving to Aspudden, a borough of Stockholm. The pictures are shot as a response to the striking dominance of Nature and the lack of commerce. The drive behind this series was to return to a way of approaching photography that I had prior to my Fine Arts Education. Back when I intuitively took a picture that appealed to me without it being weighed by educated consideration. Granted this series is framed by a theme. That is, to make visible and to gestalt a relationship between the natural and urban landscape, but without consciously looking for pictures. Instead, deliberately trying to discover these subjects as if they are being seen by a guest or a tourist; for the first time.

The dailiness of living is never that exotic. It is rather blinded by the familiar and filled with daily routines. The subjects that appealed to me were caught on the way to the subway or out jogging or when I left off my children to daycare. Then, only caught in memory for later use, when the light, the season and the weather fit. Using a large format camera it could take a year before the memory of the moment and the shot were possible to unite. Should I not be attentive to the probable moment another year could pass.

During the ten plus years this project has progressed many things have happened, both in my own life and in the landscape. In the beginning I lived alone, now we are four. My partner, our two daughters and I. My address has moved around to different residencies in the other southern boroughs of Stockholm such as Fruängen, Årsta and now Hammarbyhöjden. I have also lived a period in Tokyo’s Mukojima district. To photograph my surroundings close to home has now become an ingrained habit. I do it continually as part of my daily life.

John Håkansson