NILS JORGENSEN | PHOTOGRAPHER

Both my Mother and Father have influenced my choice to be a Street Photographer. My Mother is an artist and throughout my childhood I was introduced to the real inner struggles that is the life of creativity. It was the norm for me to see her paintings in progress, and my constant childhood memory was one where her painting and my life were intertwined. My Father is a doctor, but has been a keen photographer all his life and encouraged me when I showed an interest. He originally studied to be an architect, and his keen sense of design is one which I hope I have inherited. In 1976 he gave me his old Leica IIIg which I still have today.

Although at the time there were cheaper, simpler, more automated cameras to choose from, he told me I should learn to master technique first. And this I did. Balanced with this wise technical advice was his love of photography books and magazines. One book above all others was my favourite. He had the Time Life Photography Year 1973 Edition book.

This remarkable edition has outstanding images by the world’s greatest photographers, but it was the portfolios of Paul Strand, Diane Arbus, Andre Kertesz, Elliott Erwitt and Tony Ray-Jones which hit me more than any of the others. And still today thirty years later, as I re-open this treasured book, these images have lost none of their power to inspire.



All these photogaphers practiced what is now termed as ‘Street Photography’. Little did I know then, at the age of 14, that I was to dedicate the rest of my life to this great art.
 

All images  ©  Nils Jorgensen

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