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Scandinavia - Artist of the week

Every week, starting this very second, we’ll post artwork by our favourite Scandinavian artists

Every week, starting this very second, we’ll post artwork by our favourite Scandinavian artists and have them let us into the details on how the images came about. First out is photojournalist Camilla Stephan. Besides being a super cute Dane with Inuit blood who kicks our asses at drinking and eating humongous cinnamon buns, she’s given us great Greenlandic stories like Sittin’ On Top Of The World and An Arctic Wave Of Teenage Suicide. We spoke to her about some of her favourite pictures.

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I took this picture [above] on my way to visit a Lebanese family who’d just returned to their apartment after being forced to leave their home and everything they owned. The streets of Beirut were filled with soldiers and tanks and I’d been told not to take pictures. All of a sudden I saw an innocent little boy walking right by a huge tank. I only got to take three pictures then some soldier dude ran towards me. I pulled my stupid tourist act, which worked like a charm and instead of getting thrown in jail and have my camera smashed I walked away with one of my best pictures.

This is one of my favourite pictures. The little Greenlandic girl is called Malaviak and she lives in the northernmost city in the world, only 650 people live here. It was her third birthday and she wore a white shirt, pearls, and a beautiful homemade hat. I had to go down on my knees to get in the same height as her and I remember the smell of seal meat soup cooking in the kitchen. It’s a tradition that whenever someone has a birthday you put up a note in the city’s only shop to invite everyone round. People showed up with coins or candy to give to the birthday girl.

I took this picture at a zombie crawl night in Copenhagen. A zombie crawl is when hundreds of people dress up as zombies and go to as many bars as possible to drink as much as possible. I got some great pics that night, especially from when a bunch of zombies decided to go shopping in a local supermarket. Never in my life have I seen such a confused cashier. Great fun.

To see more of Camilla’s pictures from Greenland and a bunch of other stuff, click here.