Master Profiles: Lars Tunbjörk

* “Master Profiles” is a series profiling all the great photographers of uncontrolled life. Unlike the rest of the blog, I’m doing these in a straight profile format to make it easy for quick access to facts, quotes and knowledge on all the masters. I’ll also group them together here every time I add a new one.

Profile:

Lars Tunbjörk (1956-2015)

Swedish photographer known for his colorful, quirky and surreal images of everyday absurdity from surburbia to the office.

Background:

Born: February 15th, 1956 in Borås, Sweden

Born in Boras, Sweden, Lars Tunbjörk was influenced by Swedish photographer Christer Stromholm and American photographer William Eggleston. At 15, Tunbjörk started taking photographs for his local newspaper Borås Tidning, soon freelancing for the national newspaper Stockholms-Tidningen, and later for Swedish newspapers like Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter. The fine art photography world first recognised his work with the Swedish Picture of the Year award for a black and white documentary picture of Swedish everyday life. While starting in black and white, he switched to color photography, which became something he explored in the style of 1970’s American photographers. His home of Boras and Sweden also influenced his work heavily, as he created images showcasing its lifestyle quirks.

He also began focusing on his own documentary work covering the oddities he found with his unique eye for the absurd and surreal in Sweden. Surburbia, commercial stores, office spaces and more were some of his favorite environments to photograph these aspects of life that many could both laugh at and relate to. His work also focused on vivid colors using flash to really bring out the surreality of his scenes and combine with his witty content to bring a signature look and feel to his photos. Much of it raising questions and smiles at the quirkiness and interest he was able to find from day-to-day life.

Speaking to The New York Times in 2011, Tunbjörk said: “Especially in my older work, I was looking for strange, absurd situations, going on endless tours to festivals, campgrounds, and shopping centres. If I found an interesting place, I could stand there for hours, waiting. I often get asked if my pictures are staged. They are not.”

Tunbjörk’s work made him one of the most influential visionaries in contemporary color photography. Some of his most known projects were Office, his unique take photographically on office spaces in New York, Tokyo and Stockholm, and I Love Boras, a quirky and humorous look at life in his hometown.

After a history of heart attacks, Tunbjörk suddenly passed in 2015 at the age of 59. TIME’s Deputy Director of Photography Paul Moakley wrote in his obituary: “Lars made you feel like you weren’t alone and that someone else understood the great abyss that stands before us”.

During his lifetime, Tunbjörk had ten photo books published, including Office, published by the Journal Editions in 2002, Home, published by the Steidl Editions in 2003, Vinter, copublished with the Musée d’Art Moderne de Stockholm by the Steidl Editions in 2007, I Love Boras, published by the Steidl Editions in 2007, and Every Day, published by the Diaphane Editions in 2012.

His last exhibition took place in Toulouse in 2013, where Lars Tunbjörk presented I Love Boras, Office and Vinter. His photographs can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. Tunbjörk was a member of Agence Vu and worked for The New York Times Magazine, Time, GEO, and others.

Style:

Social documentation of daily life with a unique eye
Quirky, Absurd and Surreal
Humor
Vivid Colors

Gear:

Camera: Medium Format – Mamiya 7 + Flash

Tunbjörk is known for his medium format color film photography and he mainly used the Mamiya 7, a 6×7 medium-format rangefinder, along with a flash, like a Lumedyne, as a fill light to bring out the vivid colors and add to the surreal look.

Quotes:

“I want to be a stranger. I want to look at [things] a little bit from a distance and with a critical eye, concentrating on this mad theater…”

“I try to take photos like an alien, or a small child.”

“When I photograph now, I try to imagine that I’d never seen a place like this before.”

“I try to work with a quite objective, critical, and humorous eye on the world.“

“Especially in my older work, I was looking for strange, absurd situations, going on endless tours to festivals, campgrounds, and shopping centres. If I found an interesting place, I could stand there for hours, waiting. I often get asked if my pictures are staged. They are not.”

“…I photographed a lot of empty interiors: welfare offices just after family therapy, empty reception rooms. I noticed that even after the people left, a feeling of them stayed in the room, a sense of sadness.”

“Everything gets filtered through the artist’s eyes.”