Sweden's Nature Photographer 2015

In June 2016 I unexpectedly received the award "Nature Photographer of 2015" from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency who has been handing out the price for the past 26 years.

It was an unexpected yet fun award to receive although controversial. How can a Photoshopper become the nature photographer of the year? The biggest misconception with my work is that I create something in the computer, everything I do, every little detail is photographed and just combined together in the computer. To me the computer is just a way to put the pieces of the puzzle together and it requires a lot of planning.

The nature and northern European landscapes has always been important in my work and something that I constantly come back to. I understand that not everyone think that I deserve this price, I therefore decided to donate the entire price money of 25 000 SEK to The Swedish Cancer Society. An independent non-profit organization with the vision of finding cures for cancer. The overall aim of the Society is to achieve a higher survival rate and a reduction in the incidence of cancer.

A big thank you to all of you who follow me and thanks to the
Environmental Protection Agency for this prestigious award!

Link to the Environmental Protection Agency press release (in Swedish).

Impact - Behind the Scenes

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Impact, 2016

Impact, 2016

I was thinking about this idea for quite a while. I thought it would be interesting and challenging to create a lake cracking up like a mirror. I knew that I had to get real mirrors to create the effect of the lake cracking up as realistic as possible. In early 2015 I found an old Gym that were selling off their old mirrors. I decided it was time to get this idea started, bought four 220x160 cm mirrors and had them cut into differently shaped triangles at a glazier (a professional glas cutter). I brought out the mirrors, a boat and the model to a stone-pit last summer (2015). See how it was made below: (Click here for more behind the scenes videos)

New Shop & Limited Edition Prints

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First time I thought about making limited edition prints available was about 5 years ago. Since then I've been exploring what the best way would be to present and categorise my work. Being a perfectionist doesn't make it easier. I wanted my work to be presented in the best way possible to really show the details and effort I put into all the details of my work but also to create an exclusive product that really feels special. I finally came to a decision and the prints are divided as follows:

The different sizes available + the new book IMAGINE! For reference, I'm holding the Medium sized print of "The Cover Up".

Small

Open Edition unsigned print.
Up to 43 cm (17 inch) wide. Prints are handled and distributed by INPRNT, USA and are available for world wide shipping. 

Medium

Limited Edition of 10 +2AP
74 cm (30inch) wide. Signed and numbered on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 500 gram/m² paper. Shipped flat in a robust custom made box. 

Large

Limited Edition of 3 +2AP
100 to 180 cm wide. Signed and numbered on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gram/m² paper.  Shipped in a robust protective tube. 

For the Small edition the choice wasn't hard, I've been working with inprnt.com for a few years now and I'm very satisfied with the quality of the prints they make for me. The medium and large sized prints were harder to decide. But about a year ago, I discovered Hahnemühle's Photo Rag 500 gsm paper for the Medium Sized Prints, which is a matt thick heavy paper that really makes the details and colours pop out. That was very important to me to make it the luxury product I wanted. The problem was that this paper isn't supposed to be rolled due to its thickness. Therefore I spent the past half a year creating a custom made box to ship the print flat. It's not only a very protective box to make sure that the print arrives safely, but it's also nice and simply designed to make packing and unpacking easy. The large prints are the same size as the ones currently exhibited at Fotografiska Museum of Photography in Stockholm, Sweden. They stretch from 100, 140 and 180 cm wide in an edition of 3. Printed on Hahnemühle's Photo Rag Baryta 315 gsm paper which is an excellent glossy fine art paper with a very expressive feel. In order to ship these prints safely they come in a robust tube. The Medium and Large prints comes with a certificate of authenticity and includes world wide shipping. Check out the shop in the link below and let me know if you have any questions or enquiries.

My new book IMAGINE

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I'm proud to present IMAGINE, my first photo book, available in Swedish and English.

I have been thinking about making a book for a long time, but I wanted to wait until I had at least fifty images I'm happy with. Being a perfectionist constantly struggling to become better getting a selection of fifty images has taken me a bit more time than I planned, but I finally got there!

The book consists of fifty of my best images including two, so far, unpublished new images that I have been working on for the past months. It's published by the Swedish book publisher Max Ström in a Swedish and English edition. As a bonus the book contains two new, so far, unreleased photos.

It's available for purchase in many larger book stores and on Amazon.

Imagine
$17.13
By Erik Johansson, Goran Segeholm
Buy on Amazon

Exhibition - Imagine: Created Reality

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On the 26th of February the doors opened to my first big exhibition at Fotografiska Museum of Photography in Stockholm, Sweden. The exhibition will run until the 10th of April. The exhibition also includes three new unreleased photos. For more information about the exhibition check out Fotografiska's website. Hope you can make it, it's a rare opportunity! If you Live in Stockholm or around it's mandatory!

Coming up in 2016

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Exhibition, Book & New Projects

Between 26th February and 10th April 2016 I will be exhibiting a selection of my work at the Museum of Photography (Fotografiska) in Stockholm, Sweden. I'm also releasing a book with about 50 of best photos by the time of the exhibition. Save the date and hope to see you there! More information about the exhibition on Fotografiska's website. More information about the book is coming soon.

In addition to the exhibition and book project I have a lot of personal projects planned for 2016 and two new behind the scene videos coming up in February / March. Happy new year, 2016, bring it on!

Left: Test prints for the exhibition. Right: Test prints for the upcoming book.  

Left: Test prints for the exhibition. Right: Test prints for the upcoming book.  

Moving from Berlin to Prague

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I recently relocated my studio and myself from Berlin to Prague. I've been in Berlin for almost 4 years now and it was time for a change. I think that inspiration lies within the contrasts between things. Sometimes we need change and new challenges and to get out of our comfort zone. I'm excited to see what Prague has to give and I already have some ideas about projects I want to realize here!

 

I haven't published many new projects recently, but there are some big things coming up soon so stay tuned.

Euromaxx made a feature of my recent move to Prague.

Everything is New

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I recently changed my whole website from Wordpress to Squarespace. I always had people helping me out with my webdesign but finally I discovered a tool where I can make it the way I want without having to do any coding. Works great and looks good.

Since I changed the entire website all blog posts disappeared. I decided that I wanted to start off fresh but I added a few older blog posts. If you're interested in behind the scenes videos I gathered them all on this page: Behind-the-scenes. I also put some content that was on the blog on the FAQ.

I'm currently working on a few new personal projects and new behind the scenes video coming up later this fall. Hope you enjoy the new design and please let me know in the comments below if you're missing anything or if there is something you would like me to write about here.

Soundscapes - Behind the Scenes

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I had this idea about creating a landscape from a sound wave, over time I developed this idea. The surroundings were shot on Iceland and the landscape coming out from the gramophone in the Swedish countryside. My sister found an old gramophone player in a vintage store a few years ago and I thought it would fit this idea perfectly. Eric and Kristian Alnemar were my models for this one.

Soundscapes, 2015

Soundscapes, 2015

Even though it was a pretty straight forward process of putting it together I thought it could be fun to put together a very short Behind-the-Scenes video to show how it was made. See how it was made below: (Click here for more behind the scenes videos)

Endless Stories

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An image created for The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation (Barncancerfonden). By supporting cancer research more children can survive and fulfill their dreams, like for example reading all the books in the world.

Endless Stories, Barncancerfonden 2014

Endless Stories, Barncancerfonden 2014

Behind the scenes video

Julia suffered from leukemia at age of two. Now the treatment is completed, and Julia is back with her friends at the kindergarten. When Julia was two years old she was diagnosed with leukemia. Her parents Adriana and Magnus and big brother, Gustav, had just moved to Alingsås, Sweden when life turned. There are no words to describe such a situation. But how inhumanely overwhelming things may seem, there is hope. Despite the difficult circumstances, she has been an incredible fighter. With your help increase the chance that their lives will be filled with many more wonderful experiences and memories!

The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to collecting money to prevent and combat cancer diseases in children. The Childhood Cancer Foundation operates exclusively on the basis of donations from individuals and the private sector, and receives no grants from the national government, the municipalities or the county councils.  Everyone involved worked for free on this project. Find out more about The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation here: www.barncancerfonden.se

From October 2014 until the end of 2014 this photo was available to buy in my print shop on inprnt.com where all the money including the print cost would go to The Childhood Cancer Foundation. We sold a total of 39 prints and raised $ 3840 USD. Thank you all for the support!

Due to more people asking for the print it's once more up in the shop and 50% of the sale price will be donated to the organization: Buy Print

Client: Barncancerfonden
Stylist: Catherine Vaindorf
Stylist Assistant: Evelina Engström
Photo Assistant: Vincent Sjögren
Advertisment Agency: Ingo, Sweden