Background - Project

The creative director at Northmill contacted me on a normal rainy afternoon in Stockholm, Sweden. Adam Hunt, a man whom I had never met nor spoken to previously, sends me a message:

“Reaching out because I need a photographer at incredibly short notice…”

Being as flexible as I am and striving to be, we jump on a call as soon as we can on a Thursday. At the call, I learned that Adam had spotted my work at “CONG” a Vietnamese street kitchen in Gamla Stan, Stockholm. That Adam also has full faith in my skills when it comes to photography. Stunned yet honored, we dive directly into the assignment at hand - To assist Adam in a Marketing Campaign called “We Make Sweden Work”. A raw ad campaign that the following week shall be ready for print and hung all around Stockholm´s Subway system and bus stations for 2 weeks.

I gladly accepted the challenge to visit 3 small businesses starting Monday the following week. Take raw flash images of the daily happenings within the business and “portraits” of the owners, furthermore have the results delivered on the same day of each shoot. Each visit was around 30 - 40 min per location. The flash and rawness (no editing) of the photos have the aim to illustrate the hard work and grit small businesses go through.

During the visits there is no time to waste - I assist Adam by easing up the employees, creating an understanding for those whom I can photograph and those who do not want to partake. Moreover constantly having a conversation with the employees and Adam to create an understanding of what might be interesting at that specific business/location. Making sure I do not disturb anyone´s daily assignments.

Directly after each visit, I directly transfer the pictures to an SSD and send the pictures to Adam as they are, so Adam can make a selection and directly make posters out of them (Add the message Nortmill wants to tell).

The week after - I could see the pictures I had just taken being hung on posters 3 meters in height at my nearest subway station. A joy I didn’t see coming 2 weeks prior.