IN CONVERSATION WITH
Cinematic portrait
Nothing floats Swedish photographer Magnus Lindbom’s boat like turning
his back on civilisation and heading out into the back of beyond, armed
only with his cameras, minimal outdoor gear and his trust y one-man tent
Interview by Steve Watkins
there. Isolated among wildness. It’s where he needs to be. Many
places within Europe offer a hint of wild, but true wilderness is
rarely found. Scandinavia is different. And Swede Magnus Lindbom
is a different kind of landscape photographer. Born and raised in
Stockholm, Magnus spent his childhood summers aboard his parents’
31-foot sailing boat, Granada I, exploring the archipelago of more than
30,000 islands off the Swedish capital’s coastline. ‘It is really stunning
around there. I just recall running around on small islands – a kind
of easy, carefree life. Those early memories are no doubt
relevant to my interest developing in landscape photography,
even if I can’t link them specifi cally.’Magnus’ love for photography
was sparked when he received a digital compact camera as a
graduation present from his parents. It was just before he went off on
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Outdoor Photography APRIL 2014
military service, so he used the camera to record his experiences on
the Arctic ranger training exercises. ‘I didn’t have much time to shoot
pictures but following those exercises I felt this urge to be out there in
the wilderness. So, after I left the army, I planned a hiking trip with a
military friend to the north of Sweden. It was intense and I captured
it all with my compact camera. When I came back I knew that I had
found something that I was really interested in, but I was deeply
disappointed with what was on the memory card. It didn’t make sense;
it wasn’t what I had seen.
I decided to learn more about photography but it was hard to translate
what I was seeing into a picture. My confi dence was so low at times.
APRIL 2014 Outdoor Photography
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