Lina Scheynius | Diary & Others

I started out by posting pictures of myself and my ex boyfirend and friends on flickr and on this website. I was really just doing it because I loved doing it. Some people started to post my work on their blogs, and it started to spread over the internet. One day (in 2008) a photographer’s agent found my work through one of the blogs and contacted me. She was wondering if I would be interested in doing it professionaly. Absolutely terrified, and not at all sure if it was a good idea, I said yes. Two weeks later I had my first job from her – a portrait of Charlotte Rampling for Dazed and Confused. And since then it has been a lot of more work , and here I am. It is pretty much all thanks to the internet though.

– Lina Scheynius

I get ideas while walking in big cities or forests listening to good music.

– Lina Scheynius

I tend not to think too much about what I am doing, if I see something that interests me I shoot it. I like bringing my camera into situations people wouldn’t normally bring a camera. And I like showing people in moments and moods they wouldn’t show out in public.

– Lina Scheynius

I usually shoot people that I know pretty well and therefore already have developed a trusting relationship with. It’s important for me that they can feel relaxed, but also that I can!

– Lina Scheynius

I only ever work with light sources that exists in our everyday life and never use my flash. I am very interested in light of every form, and how it can change a place, a situation, a mood or even an object.

– Lina Scheynius

I love using this type of photography! I love anything where the result can surprise you. I just wish it wasn’t so bloody expensive and hard to hunt down the Polaroids.

– Lina Scheynius

My dad was taking a lot of pictures of us as kids and I used to always want to borrow his camera. There are a few pictures in our family albums of my family’s heads and a great space of nothing above them. When I turned 10 I got my own camera and finished two rolls of film that same day. Since then I have just kept doing it. It comes very natural to me. Probably more so than brushing my hair!

– Lina Scheynius

When I work on my personal pictures the viewer doesn’t enter my mind until I start the selection process for my website. And even then I try to not think about him or her. If I did, I think a larger section of my work would remain unseen, as a lot of it is extremely personal to me and not initially captured to be viewed by others, but more as you mentioned, to document. Or experiment. I guess that it is my almost forced disregard of the viewer that gives you the impression that I am fearless.

– Lina Scheynius

We had a photobook at home that used to fascinate me. It’s by photographer Åke Hedström and called ‘Emma’. It’s a father’s photographs of his very allergic daughter. She dies after eating a brazilnut. Extremely sad but amazing photography.

– Lina Scheynius

But I am definitely not someone who has a camera around at all times. Fact is that I take very few photographs, and I am very selective when I take them. I don’t hunt for images. I let them come to me through moments in my life, and occasionally I create them.

– Lina Scheynius

I don’t actually have a favourite photographer. I like quite a few but I get more inspiration from painters like Egon Schiele. I love his work for leaving me feeling slightly uncomfortable. And also because it feels very real and intimate.

– Lina Scheynius

There is a tiny section on my website called “red” with photographs against a pink sky. I was in my room on the phone to one of my best friends and noticed how amazing the sky looked so I told my friend to hold on for a sec, and then I climbed out on the roof with my Polaroid camera and very quickly shot some self-portraits against the sky. That is exactly how I love working.

– Lina Scheynius

For my magazine work I try to always work in an as similar process as possible to my personal work. I like to keep it intimate by working in really small teams of people that I enjoy having around. I also try to be spontaneous and not plan anything more than where I will be and who I will be there with. Furthermore I want it to be fun and I never take 100 similar versions of the same picture. I was a model before I became a photographer and I think the process of most fashion shoots I have been on is very draining and gives a pretty stale result. Usually there are too many people around all trying to do an amazing job and too much time is spent on things in general.

– Lina Scheynius

In my opinion the instant itself can never be changed. Yes, bringing out a camera has already made the moment different from if one hadn’t brought it out. But the fact that there is a photograph of it doesn’t change what happened. Only perhaps the memory of it. My memory of it. The importance of it in relation to other instances that might be similar but not remembered.

Bringing in a viewer gives the instant even more importance in relation to others. It doesn’t really make the single picture more important to me. I am not sure, but it could even be the contrary as it is no longer a secret personal thing but some kind of official object.

But the image itself gets a new and perhaps more important life with all these eyes viewing it and hopefully relating to it in whatever way.

On another note I have noticed that bringing out these instances in public has an effect on the future ones. For better or worse.

– Lina Scheynius

I have never experienced any problems due to my lack of education. Things have happened very quickly for me and there has never been anyone asking for a paper where I can prove my skills or merits. I personally don’t have much faith in creative education and I am very happy I have never chosen to do one.

– Lina Scheynius