As I think Thomas H Johnsson is one of the most interesting Swedish photographers, I am very happy to present him as an invited photographer at the F blog. The photographs are from his photobook En blues från Landskrona, which I strongly recommend (here is my review of the book).
"Landskrona or Sweden's crown, as it was once thought of, is a small working-class coastal city where the Social Democrats have always governed. It is a city best known for its black and white striped football team and its ship building. Now days, it gets media attention due to its crime and unemployment rates. In 1980 the Board of the Öresund shipyard declared that it was impossible to compete with Asian shipyards and following the announcement, Sweden's largest shipyard was closed.Two thousand five hundred people were sacked. The same year, in the final match against IFK Norrköping, the football team Landskrona BoIS, the city's pride, fell to defeat. The city was in crisis and in the middle of this I stood; an ordinary, eight year old boy from the working-class.
Twenty five years later, I am here again. I am somewhat older, of course, and shaped by my roots. I am going through contact sheets of negatives taken mostly from the '90s to the current day. I feel obliged to take the photos from a drawer and to exhibit them; they are pictures of a city totally transformed but exactly the same city as in that time. It is here where I have become the person that I am. And I love this small town. That is why I am exhibiting the photos." (From En Blues från Landskrona. Written by Thomas H Johnsson. Translated by F. Skott and Bea Rowland).
Please check out Thomas H Johnsson's homepage and, if you can read Swedish, his very interesting blog. And don't miss his exhibition i Jönköping, Sweden.
All photos © Thomas H Johnsson.
Invited by Fredrik Skott
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