I have been photographing since 1971 when, as a teenager, I bought my first SLR-camera. All years since, photography has been my passion and later on also part of my work.

Through the years the subject of the pictures have changed. The first years joy of shooting friends, birds and squirrels changed into documenting nature and then further into the fascination of freezing aesthetic moods only sensed but not yet digested. This is still a major part of my method, simply responding when light and shape gives me a thrill.

In “the old days” part of the thrill was connected to the work in the darkroom: Could the negatives be printed to reveal the initial sensation in the finished pictures? Although it was always a pleasure to see the good print emerge this whole process with its darkness, chemical fumes and expensive materials was never a favorite of mine and I embraced the first computers with photo software (Digital Darkroom and Photoshop) in 1988. Later I changed to digital photography enjoying the freedom this gives in the creation of the picture while spending less time on photographic craftsmanship. Today the gab between vision and picture is smaller and the joy of creating greater.

Today's series
Today my photography often concerns what can not be seen without the photograph/photographer: Structures in micrometer-scale, movement blurred by long exposure or frozen by flash, the landscape as seen under the night sky with 30 seconds exposure or stuff that evolves through multiple exposures and treatments in Photoshop. Thus part of my art has become an aesthetic and scientific excavation of what is hidden but may be there.

To be more specific the Fertility series shows flowers down to a 20 µm scale with open stamens filled with ripe pollen while the Butterfly mosaics series shows butterfly wings at an even greater resolution.

The Night life series features the secret life of flying and mating night insects.

The Life in negative space Photoshop experiments tries to see into the future evolution of the yet unknown biosphere of an undiscovered place.

The meta series
Besides the aesthetic and evolutionary fascination some of the series combine into meta series with a more philosophical contents.

The Balances series discussing our relation to resources and nature: How do we act meaningful and does nature care?




The Meditations explore spontaneous and/or automatic photography. Following the rules a: Nothing is planned, b: Thinking should be restricted to managing technical matters, c: Series should be finished within minutes, these series tries to catch the concentrated moments of awareness.




In the Reflections series it seems that nature is talking back. Mirroring of parts of the pictures reveals that nature seems to be populated by demons and angels. Strange . . .

Shame
Also, the present Danish warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan have demanded an answer in the work Shame.

Welcome to my photographic world!

Best wishes,
Jens H. Petersen
info@jenshpetersen.dk