Anders Petersen (photographer)

Anders Petersen (born 3 May 1944 Solna, Sweden) is a Swedish photographer, who lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

Biography

Anders Petersen is noted for his intimate and personal documentary-style black-and-white photographs. He studied photography under Christer Stromholm in Sweden, 1966-1967. In 1967, he started to photograph the late-night regulars (prostitutes, transvestites, drunks, lovers, drug addicts) in a bar in Hamburg, Germany, named Café Lehmitz, and continued that project for three years. His photobook of the same name was published eight years later, in 1978, by Schirmer/Mosel in Germany, and then appeared in France (1979) and Sweden (1982). Café Lehmitz has since become regarded as a seminal book in the history of European photography.

In 1970, he co-founded SAFTRA, the Stockholm group of photographers, with Kenneth Gustavsson. At the same time, he taught at Christer Stromholm's school. He has been director of the Göteborg School of Photography and Film. He began to photograph for magazines, and he continued his personal photo diary work, which continues to this day. He has photographed for extensive periods of time in prisons, mental asylums, and homes for old people.

In 1978, Petersen received a grant from the Swedish Authors' Foundation. In 2003, he was elected Photographer of the Year at the Recontres d'Arles. In 2007, he was one of four finalists for the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

Petersen has published more than 20 books, mostly in Sweden, and has had solo and group exhibitions throughout Europe and Asia. included "Ca me touche", les invités de Nan Goldin, at Les Rencontres d'Arles festival, France.

Statements by Anders Petersen about his work

"The people at the Café Lehmitz had a presence and a sincerity that I myself lacked. It was okay to be desperate, to be tender, to sit all alone or share the company of others. There was a great warmth and tolerance in this destitute setting."

"To me, it's encounters that matter, pictures are much less important."

"I can't describe reality; at the most, I can try to capture things that seem to be valid, the way I see them."

Books by Petersen

• Gröna Lund (1973)
• Café Lehmitz (1978)
• Fängelse ("Prison"; 1984)
• Rågång till Kärleken ("On the line of love"; 1994)
• Ingen har sett allt ("Nobody has seen it all"; 1995)
• Du Mich Auch ("Same to you"; 2002)
• Close/Distance (2002)
• From Back Home (with JH Engström; 2009)
• City Diary (in three volumes; 2009)

References

• Anders Petersen, Photo Poche #98, published 2004, Actes Sud. ISBN 2-7427-4964-0
• Les Recontres d'Arles Photographie 2006, published 2006, Actes Sud.

External links

• [1]
• Examples of Anders Petersen's early photographs
• 18 minute audio interview from 2006, and examples of recent photographs
• "Anders Petersen - Photographs 1966-1996", zerozero