aarhus
A few months ago I asked a bunch of people to produce or give me an example of how they saw this world right at this moment. Some replied, and the next few weeks, their offerings will be posted in an ongoing series.
The second one is a shot by Henrik B. Clausen. If you like this, do engage and leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you. HBC is a film director and videographer from Denmark.
For more on HBC check his Vimeo
Check out #1 here
As a ray of light starts to shine on my life again, my brother walks in darkness
Surrounded by both love and uncertainty he once again dons the vestiges of the veteran fighter
Round one, round two, round three - on the ropes - but still last man standing
A smile, a shoulder and an iron will through internal hell
Depended upon, loved and revered
A father, a friend for life
Stronger than all
Unique.
I had been dumb enough to register a desk at this place called ‘Grisk’ to be in an environment with other creatives. Trouble with modern creatives is their greed and willingness to exploit others, even harvest them, for their own gain. Grisk was just another place with people that were less than genuine - and in the end, not very creative.
But this story is not about them. Grisk was close to where the homeless hung out, and in the months I was there, I saw things get progressively worse - and now we are even passing a law, so they can be removed from places so ‘good people’ do not have to look at them. This law would serve better if it stopped ‘event marketing’ in the streets - you know the assholes who stop you and want money for a cause or indeed wants you to change phone company or some other trivial crap, so a CEO somewhere can make more. Those, apparently, need to be here, as they are important to society.
One day when leaving Grisk, I checked out a reflection as I sometimes do. This time a fresh puddle of rain. As I experimented shortly with perspective and distance, I started getting looks - anyone that shoots street and abstract know what I am talking about. You will get people trying to see what you are seeing, looking at the same place or in the same direction - and they see nothing. Which always makes me chuckle. This is what I saw:
I hear a voice behind me ‘you should take a picture of me’ - I go ‘sure’ and turn around and click to see a rather surprised man. He was clearly homeless. He could not grasp why I was pointing the lens toward a puddle. I asked if all he saw was the puddle and not the reflections in it. He looked a bit befuddled, then smiled - I am sure he was not used to people reacting to him this way, which is just heartbreaking. Sometimes it is the simplest things that opens a whole new world for someone - and we need reflection - we need to reflect on why some people end up on the streets, why a lot are poor, why we let fat cat CEOs run away with it all and why we elect the people we do. Now, I, in all fairness, did not open a new world to this guy - but I interacted with him, I ‘saw’ and ‘heard’ him and I gave him a little bit of myself. I hope he gets off the streets.
…well, you kind of asked for it ;)
Both shots are unedited if memory serves. I normally have qualms about shooting the homeless or destitute. It seems invasive to me and as an empath, I do not find it very easy to depict people in squalor - because my brain screams ‘why’ at me. If you are not an empath, I do not know how to describe it to you.
I took this shot on a whim - and it was taken at least 2 years ago. Still, I remember a certain feeling of endearment which was possibly why I took it. And I was right. As I edited it, I see the woman on the right had put her hand in a classical position, trying to signal comfort. A lot of people would not see that detail, evident as it is, because they would be focussing on their clothes and the horrible notion, that islam is the biggest threat against Western society. It is not. Stupidity is.
It is a shot I am very proud of, as it is one of my signatures to capture emotion. Here, I must have sensed it, as I was passing, because the hand was initially obscured. I will be putting more up of my earlier high end stuff, and pouring my mind into it. People scream at me to be an author or a writer full time. I will do both then.