Gratitude
Your Support, My Art & Mental Health Journey
Thank you for choosing to support me by purchasing one of my fine art wall photoprints—words can't fully express my gratitude. As someone living with mental health challenges, maintaining a traditional job is not possible due to the nature of my Ultra Ultra Rapid Cycling Bipolar disorder, where depression and anxiety strike several times a week without warning, and disrupted sleep patterns are only one of many constant challenges. Fine art photography is my passion and allows me to create at my own pace when my mind permits. My goal is to once again support myself through it. During my highs, my creativity truly flourishes, but it’s during my lows that it keeps me going, serving as my most effective form of therapy. Your support not only helps me continue this journey but also raises #bipolarawareness. Thank You :)
MY PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY
My passion to photography really took off when I got my first SLR a Minolta X100 with 2 lenes in 1987.
First I announced my self as our school photographer not than there was a position or that anyone els was doing it. I started taking photos of the other kids while doing their individual sport activities, developed the prints and sold it to them. I had boards and boards full of photos. At the end of the year somehow I took the pictures at the Prom Dance and that was how it all started in High School.
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Off to the army next, but with a prior application I got permission to take my camera with me as a photographer and was the only one allowed on the base to have a camera, so naturally I continued where a left off at school only now I was starting to make more money.
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Next stop Cape Peninsula Technician where I enrolled to study photography, but sadly due to dyslexia and learning disabilities I dropped out but before that I was the only one in my class who was selected to take part in a Ilford Exaction and 6 of my prints were send to Johannesburg and that was enough recognition at the time.
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In 1995 I went backpacking and after my passport and some money the most important thing was I had to had a camera. Traveling turned into living in London for 7 years and during that time in 2000 I decided again to become a photographer but I knew it would had to be digital as it was very clear to me back then that digital would be the futer and I was very happy when my girlfriend bough me my first iMac.
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In 2002 I moved to Norway and in 2003 I bought my first digital camera. The 12M Fuji Film S2 as I believed it was the first consumer digital camera worth buying. I also bought a few Bowens lights and opened my first portrait Wedding studio in Narvik. Later I got the Nikon D2x and joined the Fame Fotografens franchise and went on to open studio number 2 in Harstad and won Portrait of the year in 2005.
In 2009 I was hit by a severe depression and never went back to work and I lost both studios and all my equipment, but in 2013 I wanted to get back to my photography but not with people and that's when my dad suggested I look at a website of a guy whom he met while overloading through Botswana. It was a wildlife photo safari website. I contacted the guy had a chat and the next thing you know I was on a plain to Botswana. We made a verbal agreement to become partners although I've always worked for myself and it was always my end goal to start my own photo safari business, but they planted the seed. Six months on we decided to end our partnership and they grew into the biggest Photo Safari company out there know as Pangolin Photo Safaris. I went on to become a qualified safari ranger in 2015 to better understand animal behaviour to help me take better wildlife photos and in 2017 some of my wildlife photos was published in Wildlife Photographic.
I've also worked at several lodges in the world famous Kruger National Park, Nambiti and freelanced before I decided to launch my African Memory Photo Safari business, but I couldn't of launched it at a worse time as we were with the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2019 and once again I lost all my equipment and had to sell my car as well to support myself during this bad economic period as we all remember there was no traveling and the tourism industry came to a standstill.
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All this led to yet another severe depression and it was during his period I got diagnosed with Bipolar 2 which of course came as a shock but it also started to explain my life to me. Why I've had so many challenges in life... #bipolarawareness.
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In 2021 I returned to Oslo Norway and in July of 2023 I finally managed to buy a camera again. My first Mirrorless camera a Nikon Z6ii with a Z 14-30 f4S lens and I've fallen back in love with my photography and my creative juices are flowing once again, but have since upgraded to my first medium format camera the Fuji GFX100Sii with a 20-35mm f4 and now my aim is to photograph and create fine art wall prints which are available for sale in my fine art photo print store.