Johnny Haglund

Please share a bit about your background as photographer.

I am a photographer, but I also write my own stories. I have written and photographed more then 500 stories for different magazines in many countries. I travel between four to six months every year, and very often to remote, isolated and far away corners of the world. I started to make a living out of this in around 1998.

What type of photographer are you?

I do mostly documentary and travel photography.

What are your favorite motives?

Workers, people who do hard physical labor everyday, is my favorite subject. Like gold miners in the jungles of Congo, fishermen in the northern part of Norway, lumberjacks in the deep woods of Siberia and many more.

Which products do you use today?

I use Canon 1Dx MK II, 5D MK IV and G7x MK II + several lenses and sometimes Speedlight 600 EX-RT flash. All from Canon of course.

Can you tell us about a photo moment which you will never forget.

I recently came back from an assignment in Iraq, and on this trip I was able to visit one of Saddam Husseins palaces. I arrived there in thick fog, and photography wise, it was really not very interesting. But to me personally it was like entering a fairytale seeing these ruins and thinking that Saddam once had walked exactly where I was walking. Landmines was surrounding the palace, adding another dimension to this experience.

Can you give an advice to someone who wants to develop in photography.

Believe in what you do and work hard. But at the same time, -have fun! If you do not enjoy taking pictures, even if you need to get up at 4 in the morning and walk hard and long, I believe a lot of the creativity that creates good images, will be lost.