Double Whammy - Swedish Photography Championship and an Exhibition!
“Maintaining a Facade” - the image that made it to the final.
Three walls of exhibition space:
Swedish Photography Championship 2026
That’s right! I was a finalist in this year’s edition of the Swedish Photography Championship! I got an image in the Documentary category chosen for this honour. It’s the fourth image of mine that makes it through to the finals, and I can’t help but feel whether they made a mistake every time.. The finals in the Swedish Photography Championship are judged on your print. That is, for the qualification segment of the competition, you submit your image digitally, and if you go through you need to produce a print within very specific parameters, and in the finals the print is the product that is put before the panel of judges. On 3 October, 2026, they held the event near Gothenburg, Sweden.
If there’s one thing that characterises the finals it’s competition. You get humbled real fast once you see a compilation of the images that have made it to the finals. This year was no different, and my image didn’t quite have what it takes to edge ahead of the others - something of a habit of mine! Nonetheless, I somehow made it into the official top ten of Documentary photos in Sweden in a year, so that’s gotta count for something! I also scored the highest award yet on that image in the digital qualifying, with a grade of “Distinction”, and received awards for five out of the six images I submitted to the competition. I consider that a pretty decent average!
Exhibition
This morning (on Monday, 5 October), I went to the Scandinavian Photo branch in Malmö, Sweden. In my trunk I had something very dear to me: thirteen framed prints, a demo of my photography book Stations, a blurb about who I am, and a few flyers. I had a very exciting task before me: to hang up these prints on the wall of the exhibition space in the store. Exciting, but also a little scary.. After about an hour of finickery with almost no mishaps (almost.. just ask the guy who went and got me a bit of gaffer tape..), I finally took a step back and looked at a very strange thing: my photographs, hanging on the wall of an exhibition space. Totally surreal.
I think it is a wonderful concept that the Scandinavian Photo store has. Not just because I am currently very much benefitting from it, but as an approach: allowing a space for photographers, big and small, to display their most precious work - we all know how hard it can be to be seen with your work. Especially in a world where people’s attention span gets reduced by the minute, and there are literally infinite options for distractions and entertainment right at your finger tips.
The images will be on display in the store for about three weeks, alongside that demo copy of my book. If you have the chance to stop by, do let me know what you think! The feeling of seeing my images on the wall when I was done hanging them is indescribable, of course, but hearing from others is incredibly valuable. During the time of the exhibition, I will offer a discount on the book in my store, so that if you order it, the value of shipping domestically in Sweden will be deducted on check-out. That is - free shipping within Sweden, and a discounted one for the rest of you!
