by Anette Sallmander, published in LOFT The Nordic BOOKAZINE Winter 2008 Issue, Volume #7
See here for subscription details - members of FoD are eligible for a 10% discount!

All Photos © Åke E:son Lindman

His images of objects and architecture are austere. Åke is passionate with few words and an archive of architectural pictures that make his colleagues envious.There is no other passion in his life besides his camera.

All his loved ones, his family, had to be part of it. He works with his wife Lena nowadays. The children have traveled with him all through their childhood for photo shootings of the most spectacular buildings around the world. They are close to each other. There is only one question in Åke E:son Lindman’s family that has to be left unanswered. “If you had to choose between me and the camera, what would you choose?” “Don’t make me answer that question” he will always reply. It tells us quite a lot about the passion for his camera, the Arca Swiss.

 Åke starts the conversation.

Åke: I will begin by quoting Allan Porter editor-in-chief of the former photo magazine Camera: “I will never publish pictures of theater, sports or war, … that happens in front of you and belongs to life itself. War photography is not of my interest.”

Åke leans back in his Y-chair design by Hans J Wegner and twiddles his thumbs. He seems annoyed.

AS: In what way doesn’t it interest you? As a picture, as art or as a journalistic tool?

Åke: As a journalistic tool I agree it has a purpose but as a picture itself. NO.

AS: Okay … [the silence hovers for a moment].

Åke has seen the article I did on a war photographer and it worries him. The pictures make him somehow uncomfortable.

Åke: I saw the war photographer Robert Capa's exhibition at the Nobel Museum, because of an assignment at the museum, otherwise I would never have seen it.

AS: So these kinds of pictures don’t do anything to you. What pictures do turn you on?

Åke: My own ones!

We laugh.

AS: Let’s talk about them. How did your interest in photography start?

Åke: As a child I liked to do watercolor paintings, but when I turned 12 my classmates started doing photography and I got inspired. At age 13 my father wished that I would become a lawyer, but I already understood that I wanted to be a photographer. Somehow I talked with my mother about it. She bought me my first camera - well, I couldn’t become a photographer without a camera. The determination to be a photographer was at this point a statement. I left the watercolor painting. The technique was too hard for me and I did not achieve what I wanted.

AS: Where did you learn the techniques of the camera and how to make pictures?

Åke: Some of my classmates in 8th grade knew how to make photos and how to develop them. They taught me all they knew. They had these kinds of Eastern European cameras, Zenith E and Zenith 3M, which were my first cameras to shoot with. The boys became my role models, … to me they were really experienced. I didn’t know anything but we had a darkroom at school and I started to spend my time there together with my friends. This technique is still my passion. I’m thrilled to see the images slowly grow in the developing fluid.

AS: Do you remember the first picture you developed?

Åke: No, but I do remember the first professional work I did. I was 15 years old, doing practical vocational experience at a newspaper, NSD Norrländska Socialdemokraten, [The Northern Social Democrat], that reported on Boden, a quite empty city. A news item about a house that was going to be demolished in a couples of minutes came to the editorial staff. They were short of people. The chief editor got to know of the trainee - me. A journalist gave me a Rolleiflex, a two-eyed mirror reflection camera. He prepared the camera for me, told me the light code and said, “Here you push the button”. I got some good pictures and my first published one. I still have the paper. But the rest of the photos from this period are gone, because when I finished school, I wanted to start a new life. I threw or gave everything away, everything. I was driven to learn more. In 1973 I got admitted to a photography school, a vocationally-oriented education. There I got a real good teacher who taught me the elementary tools of composition, he taught me about Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of my idols at the time and even today. I then continued to educate myself for two more years, from 1975–77, at the Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm.

AS: How was it for you to be a student in the 70s? A lot of political movements as well as feminism and sexual liberation were going on then. How did you relate to all of this?

Åke: I went to the school, focused on learning … but some pupils did not. They didn’t even show up, or even worse, sometimes the teachers didn’t show up and during some periods we did not even have a headmaster for the school. A lot of time was spent on issues about removing teachers and having general meetings. One day I found a postcard from a classmate on the notice board: “I’m in Paris. During the time I’m away I support all the strikes and protests. Angelica.” I kept the postcard as a reminder of this era.

AS: To be a young man with the possibility of saying, “I’m a photographer, do you mind if I take some pictures?” must have been the best pick-up trick ever …

Åke: Yes, but I did not do so … [he said with a twinkle in his eye].

AS: Wasn’t an architectural revolution also going on in Sweden during the same time frame? The Swedish Social Democratic Party developed The Million Program, 1,000,000 flats in 10 years, with the driving force being to launch “residential areas to create good democratic citizens”. Was this something that inspired you to be an architectural photographer?

Åke: No, not at all, that kind of architecture was horrible. Up until this point Sweden designed lasting and esthetical buildings and architects had worked with details and materials that aged well. The Million Program, to build so much in such a short time with a small budget, was devastating. The architecture from the 1960s to the 1970s is not only ugly, but also realized carelessly. Not only the architecture itself, also the architectural photography, the magazines about architecture, even the printing of the magazines was bad. Of course, ideas about everything were different at that time. The human being was presumed to be in the center. In the 1960s and 1970s the aim was the important issue, more important than quality. No, I did not find the architecture of this period interesting.

AS: What or who did inspire you?

Åke: If I look at the 1950s and further back, I can find inspiration in photographers such as Sune Sundahl and CG Rosenberg, for example. Anyway, I was a child of my times, deeply inspired by the photographer Walker Evans, who was asked by President Roosevelt’s Farm Security Administration to document the depression era of the 1930s in America, particularly the lives of farmers. My aim was to go back to the north of Sweden where I was brought up and realize a similar project.

AS: Did you?

Åke: Yes, I did, but it did not have the effect I hoped for. I went back north and took a part-time job at Norrbottens Kuriren, the local newspaper. The rest of the time I spent on my own projects. Then, during the 1980s, a new group of experimental photographers, like Gunnar Smoliansky, Dawid (Björn Dawidsson) showed up. We went back to the old wooden large format camera and that technique, experimenting in the darkroom with contrast liquids and light. I started to get interested in a bigger format. The old technique attracted me to producing photos of objects and architecture. There was an infinite variation of photo paper to use, different surfaces, thickness, and tints. I still have a catalog from Kodak, … it was a huge market. Now, it’s almost impossible to find. It has been a very quick change. I miss it.

AS: How have you perceived the world through the camera lens? Do you see everything as a possible picture? Is your reality cut and framed and composed?

Åke: It used to be like that. I always had the camera with me, but now it’s different. Before, it was almost a protection against the world around me. I could meet girls; I could make contact with other people and talk to them more easily.

AS: So I was right before, … the camera is the best pick-up trick you can have?

Åke: Yes, it is, and many use it that way. But I’m actually more interested in the camera, or to be more precise, by the creation of the images.

AS: What do you search for in your art?

Åke: I trained my eye. I know what to look for and what will make for a good composition. I usually have only one day to make a portrait of a house. The exterior, the interior, and some details. The main task is to communicate the architect’s visual perspective. I know how to move, and according to the light, I find my way.

AS: If you understand the architect’s conceptualization but see the structures differently, how will you portray the building with this conflicting view?

Åke: It is not a part of my assignment to express myself. It’s the building’s expression I’m portraying. The more I work in the field of architecture, the more I identify myself as much as an architect as a photographer. I understand architecture. Probably that’s why I’m popular among the architects.

AS: Do you prefer certain architecture? Are there any favorites?

Åke: I certainly do. And I also work for myself and my own projects, and then I choose the architecture I want. In these cases, I’m of course free to portray them as I wish. I do not think I prefer any special time period or style. It is quality I look for. I can find quality and excellence in antique architecture as well as in brutal modernism.

AS: Name me five of the best constructions ever.

Åke: Oh, this is a hard question to answer. I have to go back in time. I start with Petra in Jordan. This ancient city is remarkable, its location and construction are extraordinary. The architecture is carved in solid rock. There are tombs, churches and other buildings. Then Alhambra, the red fortress in Spain, built between 1250–1300. The architecture and the rich Moorish decoration. Then I come to the Andrea Palladio from the 1500s. Followed by Le Corbusier’s Monastery of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette in Lyon. Now I do not know what to choose anymore except for Carlos Scarpa’s architecture, … everything he did in north Italy. I can’t be more precise right now.

AS: What about Nordic architecture?

Åke: There are some … but you asked for my favorites. Swedish architecture is best when it’s done in wood; it brings out its Nordic identity and origin. The Swedish architect Gert Wingårdh is creating great architecture.

AS: Any architects you prefer besides those already mentioned?

Åke: Herzog and De Meuron … the stadium they did in Beijing (the Bird’s Nest) is fantastic. I haven’t been to China yet but I will go there to take photos of all the new architecture.

AS: What makes your work a passion?

Åke: Everything, … the smell of the fix, to dig for the picture in the developing fluid, the orange light, to see a picture slowly appear. It knocked me over from the very first. It is magic.

This article was published in LOFT The Nordic BOOKAZINE Winter Issue 2008 Volume #7. It was written by Anette Sallmander, writer, actress, dancer and producer from Stockholm.