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Andreas Johansen
@andreassjohansen
Photographer based in Norway
My name is Andreas Johansen, I’m 25 years old and live (at the moment) in Aalesund, Norway. As a kid I was always fascinated by adventure films. I guess that’s where my passion for film and photography came from. I always dreamt about going on some epic adventures myself, discovering new places. In the very beginning, still very young, I started only with film. I borrowed my mom’s camera and made shows with my fluffy animals. I also made fan trailers of stories and fictional universes I was a fan of such as Lord of the Rings. Me and my friends always liked playing in the forest and run over the mountains here in Norway, pretending to be characters from Lord of the Rings going on adventures. Easy said, I was a proper nerd.
"In the beginning I used work of others and put it together so it looked like a trailer."
Later, me and friends went out with a camera we borrowed and filmed scenes we could put together to a trailer or a short film. Making these fan trailers and short films just increased my interest for film. I also took a lot of inspiration from other content creators to realize my own films. By doing all this, I learned a lot of different skills that I’m still using today. My passion for film only increased in the upcoming years and after a while I started playing around with visual effects as well, which developed into learning about animation. Later on, I made new friends who had an interest in photography and they got my attention over to photography as well.
"I fell in love with it pretty fast."
So film and photography have always been a part of my life. I can’t live without it and it helped me getting through my childhood. I was being bullied and making films was a way for me to cope with the negative emotions I felt and to distract myself from the bullying. It gave me something to look forward to and it gave me the feeling that I had some purpose in this world. Nowadays, photography and video fulfills me with happiness. I learned to enjoy the process, see how beautiful the world really is and that I want to appreciate it as much as I can.
Life is hard and sometimes it feels like we always are on the hunt for something, and that can be quite exhausting. When I am going up a mountain I can sit down for a while and just look at everything, enjoying the fresh air and the sound of nature around me. Lay in the grass, don’t think of anything and just enjoy the sounds I hear. I associate photography and film with exploration and adventure and it just feels incredible to capture the emotions that you experience at these moments. This is something that makes life easier for me.
"I’m trying not to worry too much about tomorrow, because tomorrow is coming anyway. Today you will never see again."
Out of all your worries, 90% will not come true anyways, so you are wasting energy on something that is not happening. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t have a plan for the future, that is important and I have a ton of plans for my future myself. But when having great plans and goals for the future where you work hard on to achieve, I believe it is more important to enjoy all the small things and adventures that you find on the road towards these goals.
"This is also what I try to convey with my photos. I like to add the feeling of mystery, happiness and the sense of an adventure."
"We live in a beautiful world, full of life, full of wonders."
I intend to enjoy the most of it and share it with everyone around me, hopefully spreading some energy and positivity. Besides that, I don’t think I have one certain style or focus. I always like trying new things and it really depends where I am and what I’m taking a picture of. For me a photo has to feel right. There has to be a feeling attached to it. In my landscape photos, I like having a person or an animal in my photo because it feels like there is some sort of a story there. People will start asking questions about it, like, “who is that”, “how did he get there?” or “why is he there?”
"Though it doesn’t always have to be a person, there can be something happening in the landscape, a thunderstorm coming for example."
In my portraits I like to take photos when the person/model is moving or not knowing that I’m taking photos, because then they are acting natural. You are capturing real emotions. There have been so many times that I continued taking photos even after the photoshoot was supposed to be finished. In the end, both me and model, ended up going for the photos taken after the “official” shooting. The simple reason is that there is a real sense of emotion.
"Since a year now I also started vlogging, which is a great way to capture real emotion and live adventures too."
I wanted to document my journeys in a different way so I would be able to look back at it, relive it as if I were there again, and not forget the amazing time I had. One of my most incredible trips that I vlogged was to Latvia with my best friends, celebrating my friend’s wedding. This was a proper Russian wedding, something I never ever thought I would have the pleasure to experience. We also explored ruins of an old prison buried in a beach in Liepaya and then took a bus to Riga. It was just an amazing journey, the place, the people, the wedding… I can still feel the vodka tho. Another trip that blew me away was when I went with my girlfriend to the Czech Republic. We visited castles I only believed to exist in Disney fairytales; not only did we get to see the castles from inside, but we also got the history behind them, which to me was super fascinating.
"Photography and film have just a special power. It connects, it brings consciousness, it creates bravery."
Doing film and photography can often be hard, as a creative soul you aim high, which means that the fall is also great. The feeling of not being “good enough” can sometimes sneak into your mind. This, I think, is something anyone, anywhere, will feel at times. It helps me to visualize myself in a few years, it’s like a motivational dream. Any kind of negative feeling may appear, but it comforts me thinking about that somehow, I will end up there. A negative feeling today doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to become who you want to be, or to get where you want to be. In a way you have to look at yourself as your own hero. Not only have I become more self confident, but I have also met some of my best friends through photography and film. Two of them I met on Instagram and we just decided to meet since we had a common interest in photography. After that whole day together we are now best friends; we just clicked from the start.
"This adventurous day is also vlogged. It's not often you have on film your first meeting with your best friends."
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