Bjarke aka Managing Dictator

Bjarke was born many years after most of his favorite lenses were made. The majority (except for the Leica ones of course) date back to the 1850-1940s. He's not that old, even though his two clones, Hjalte (21) & Viggo (16) and daughter Gerda (2) think so. He lives in central Copenhagen with his 2nd wife, Natalie, the occasional children and Trine The Cat.

Nerdy info: Shot on Impossible Silver Shade 8x10" Polaroid with Sinar P2 and 305 mm Kodak Portrait Lens @ f/4.5

In his early teens he fell in love with death and black metal, and he used to growl in several obscure bands. He released his first underground fanzine, Nagual, back in 1991. He formed the vinyl only (now, that's analogue!) label Prutten Records in 1995 and in 1997 the metal label Mighty Music, which is still active on the international music scene. Bjarke also founded Denmark's largest independent music company, Target Group, and the rock bar, Zeppelin, in central Copenhagen.

In 1995 he was hired by The Danish Broadcasting Corporation as a radio host for national radio P3 where he stayed until television caught him in 1998. Since then he has produced hundreds of shows, from comedy to documentaries for a variety of broadcasters.


Nerdy info: shot on Sony FS700 (@200 fps) with Leica M-Summilux 75 mm f/1.4

While making a living out of producing living images for many years, it's the dead images (pun intended) who really excites Bjarke. Through out the last couple of years he's plowed his way through a variety of formats from digital kleinbild and medium format to analog large format, and most recently ultra large format. His images can be seen here. He also specializes in 4x5" & 8x10" Polaroids which you can get a glimpse of here. He recently built our very own 20x24" monster camera which can be seen in the studio, located in our physical shop. 

His first photographic book, "After", was published in Denmark in 2015. It contains 150+ post-coital portraits.

 

His 2nd book, Photosynthesis,  is a collaboration with botanist and PhD. Natalie Iwanycki Ahlstrand. Together the couple have created fifty camera flowers: a mash up of old camera carcasses and living plants. Descriptive text of cameras and flowers in English, French and Danish 144 pages.

Also remember to check Bjarke's Vimeo account for his other video endavours and crazy lens tests