Photographer JH Engström is at home
"Värmland is my base. And when love is true, there's room for all kinds of shades. My photographs are an honest homage to my origins." JH Engström, world famous photographer from Hagfors, allows himself a little nostalgia.
TEXT: HELENA SÖDERQVIST PHOTO: JOHAN EKLUND
Folder upon folder, all full of negatives. JH Engström's analogue life as an artist is catalogued precisely on the shelves at his studio in Smedsby. The world is gathered in Ämtervik, at least for a spell.
"This is my base. The place I want to come home to.
The forest, the mountains, the water, the air. These are the things which the body and emotions recognise," he explains. An origin. A home. The place makes him feel calm.
"I probably sound like a complete romantic when it comes to nature! Well, maybe I am. Nostalgic.
But nostalgia doesn't have to be a negative thing. It represents deep recognition, the origins which allow people to work out where they are in the world around them," reckons JH. "And without going completely crazy."
All the shades of life
JH's whole family moved to Paris when he was ten. His father, who worked in Uddeholm, was posted abroad. JH experienced massive contrasts, from living in a sparsely populated area to living in a world city. Of course this has had an effect on him, although his reflections - now, 30 years later - have become adult rationalisations.
"Most of all, I remember that it was bewildering. Paris is so much of everything. All the shades of life, all at once. You get them in Hagfors as well, but not as clearly."
He rummages around in his memories. He talks about bilingualism and French football training, about encounters and antitheses.
Documentary art
JH returned to Hagfors as a teenager with his mother, father and younger sister. His impressions from Paris were put in storage.
"Everything I'd seen and everything that was new was collected up in a bubble. There was nobody for me to share it all with."
It was at this point, during his years in upper secondary education, that his interest in photography came into being. JH went out with his camera and took photos.
"God knows why."
People and places, shaped personally and visually, a photographic whole that incorporates both the documentary and the artistic. This is more or less how it's all described, that specific Engström idiom that's led to renown and international recognition. He leans against the shelf containing the folders and attempts to explain the difference between fixing a broken-down car and taking photos.
"It's an artistic job. As far as I was concerned, for a long time it was something fun to do on weekends, not a profession. Pictures are just pieces of paper, after all."
A "daddy project"
The move to Värmland is a "daddy project", at least in part.
"Here, I can just open the door and let my kids out. To nature, to freedom. I don't want to over-exaggerate the significance, and I know kids play out on the streets in Brooklyn and have fun, but for me it's important for my children to grow up here."
He's back at the significance of the place, the feeling from home, the sense of belonging that props up his life in the middle of all the confusion.
"What about when I was assisting Testino in Paris? Bloody fashion all over the place. I was never interested in all that. But when everything was completely hysterical, I could think to myself: you have no idea what it's like to go picking blueberries, or fishing for pike."
TEXT: HELENA SÖDERQVIST
PHOTO: JOHAN EKLUND
