Rikard Osterlund came to our University and gave us a talk about his works, techniques he has used, and experiences. I had the pleasure of having a 1 to 1 discussion with him about my ideas for the identity unit. His work below is from Osterlund series ‘Look, I’m wearing all the colours’.

“This book is an intimate story of my journey as a husband trying to understand my wife’s illness. It was made using photographs taken over a 13 year period. Shown here is a small sample from the book. I started photographing Zara when we first met. Images of nights out, eating and kissing were soon joined by images of flare ups and hospital visits. She has fibromyalgia and hypermobility – conditions causing constant pain and which lead to life often feeling like it lacks cohesion and order. They join us as silent partners in our relationship with each other, and our wider world.” (Rikard Österlund, n.d.) Obviously, I can’t understand what his wife goes through, but I can understand the part of people not understanding and the endless hospital appointments, as I have other medical problems.

TALKING WITH RIKARD OSTERLUND

In the afternoon of that day, I had a 1 to 1 talk with Osterlund about my identity work. Overall I found this very useful and gave me some pointer in ways I could possibly produce and display my work.

At first, I told him my idea, which consisted of explaining my eye condition. He was really intrigued by the idea and wanted to see if I had any work to show. The only work I had to show was the practise shoot 1 location images. I told him this was experimenting and practising the technique of double exposure, and I want to photograph my family as well. Below are some of the ideas that he mentions, that has help me guide the path I want to go down.

• He like the location images, so the final 4-6 images won’t all consist of portraits, a bit of both
• While shooting the portraits, do close-ups shots, as most of the time thats how we see our families faces
• If on the day of the shoot you see something else, photograph it