As a freelancer, you get to do a lot of cool stuff. When you also take into account that you live in an amazingly beautiful county, the photo opportunities just lign up. See the artists, models, cities and sites I photographed this year. Here’s my top 10 best photos of 2018!
Yup, it’s that time of year again, where you look back and do a review of the year that’s been. I love stuff like this, both when it comes to doing it myself, or read other people do it. Here are my 10 favorite photos that I took in 2018 (click on them to see them full size).
1. Chicago
Sorry New York City. I know I’m a slut, but I lost my heart to Chicago when I went there in October. What a beautiful city. Rest assuredly, I’m going back there again. I had a great time interviewing people, photographing downtown Chicago, running along the lake and river and meeting an old friend. The last morning I took an Uber to the observatory, waited for the right moment (with my tripod) and took this photo:
2. Backstreet Girls
The first weekend of August Raumarock takes place, which is always fun. Backstreet Girls. Norway’s answer to AC/DC, with guitarist Petter Baarli as their leader, performed, and I love the moment I captured here. They are a great rock’n’roll band, and all the cliches in the book are there. There’s even a bottle of Jack Daniels on the amp next to Baarli…
3. Andøya
A panorama of the island of Andøya consisting of 12 photos that I put together as one long panorama.
I took this on my way up a mountain on the island of Hinnøya (Norway’s biggest island) in June. You can see the southernmost parts of Andøya, the bridge from Hinnøya to Andøya, and the famous Costal Voyage, Hurtigruten, in the fjord to the far left.
In the distance you can see the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing more in that direction before you hit Greenland:
4. Di Derre
Di Derre is one of Norway’s biggest bands. Their lead vocalist, frontman and songwriter is the world famous author Jo Nesbø. The band hails from Molde, where I live. And on the penultimate day of the jazz festival in July, they did a triumphant return, playing at the out door venue at the local museum for 5500 people.
I’ve become sort of a house photographer for them, and I was both of and on stage, photographing the gig. They also released their first album since the 90s this year, and my photos were on the inside cover. I took this when the band took their bow and were leaving the stage. Great moment, which they now use to promote upcoming gigs:
5. Eline Lykke
In January I did an interview in Sunnmørsposten with the fashion model Eline Lykke. She was the first curvy model to ever walk on the catwalk during the Paris Fashion Week, one of the most prestigious fashion shows in the world. Her fast growing career as a high fashion model is done between her studies to become a marine biologist. She’s just as happy with fish guts up her arms as she is with posing in front of the camera. She grew up in Ålesund in Norway, and I did the interview with her when she was home on a visit. We also did a photo session, and this one is taken at the wonderful record joint Jukebox. The photo was NOT used in the article, but I really like it.
This photo set my flickr account on fire as it appeared on flickr’s front page. She’s also holding an LP from fellow town girl Natalie Sandtorv, another woman whom I love to shoot:
6. Mags
A-ha played on Friday during Jugendfest in August. After a bit weak start, they wiped the floor with all of the other artists that night. The last half of this concert was a power demonstration of majestic proportions.I reviewed the gig, and the audience was singing louder than the band. They finished with “Take on Me…”
I love the band, but I have to be honest and say that if you take all the really good songs from the albums they’ve done since their comeback in 2000, you will have one amazingly strong pop album. I got some good shots of them, but this one, of Magne Furuholmen, was my favourite:
7. Gold on the Coastal Voyage
The only top 10 photo that I took with my cellphone. I was out running in July when it started raining a bit, but the sun popped up now and then. When I was almost home, I saw that the rainbow had appeared, and further in the fjord I saw that the Coastal Voyage (Hurtigruten) was on it’s way out. I ran as fast as I could down to the beach and managed to get there just in time:
8. Isfjorden
I left my life as a 100% freelancer on December 3rd and I’ve now got a steady job again in the village of Åndalsnes. It’s not just my home office that has a magnificent view. The moon was rising over the mountains of Isfjorden (Ice fjord). It was 14.30 (daytime), the sun had set and we had entered the blue hour. It was three days left until the darkest day of the year. The few hours of sunlight doesn’t even manage to come down from the mountain tops to hit the valley or village. All I had to do was pop my camera out of the window to take this:
9. Sigrid
Four years to the day since the very first time I saw Sigrid as a 16 year old perform at Jugendfest. She awed me, and the entire Colorline stadium, with her performance. Ålesund is her hometown, and they welcomed her with open arms. It was a bit moving, actually.
It’s amazing to see how far she’s come. As you can see in these photos, not only is she energetic, charming and just delightful on stage, she has great songs, a great voice and is putting out hit singles, visiting the world’s biggest talk shows and performing at festivals like Coachella.
I gave her performance a 6 out 6 possible points. She deserved it. I think this photo sums up how both she and we in the audience felt in that momten:
10. Tea Megaard
The Norwegian rock festival RaumaRock takes place every year in August. For the second year in a row I was part of creating a magazine for the Rauma newspaper, Åndalsnes Avis, about the festival. Since the then 15 year old Tea Megaard (now 16) would be giving no less than four performances, among them on the top of of a mountain, during the festival, I decided to focus on her. This was the front page photo of the magazine. She writes her own songs, performs both solo with a loop station and with a band and just seems born to be on stage. I went to the municipality of Averøy, dragged her out in to the wild nature of the Atlantic Ocean Road and photographed her in storm and rain. She was a great sport about it.
What do you think? Were these my best? Did you see any you didn’t like? Do you know of any photos I’ve taken that should have made the list? Leave a comment below!