As long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in photography. I remember browsing through old photo albums at my grandma’s house thinking that it was so fascinating how you could make a picture out of reality. 

I got my first camera ever as a present for my 6th birthday. It was one of those disposable cameras that I got from one of my friends. At my birthday party, I started to take some photos, and they all turned out awful haha. Motion blur and the worst composition ever. 

My second camera was a film camera that I got from my parents when I was around 9 years old. One of those cameras where you had 20 pictures in one film, and after these 20 photos I had to go to the photo store and get them developed – which was like Christmas for me. I used this camera a lot (still got the photos in an album in Sweden), and with this film camera, the motion blur disappeared and the composition started to get better.  

When the technology developed everyone got a cell phone. I also got one, a classic Nokia 3310 (yes, I was pretty cool back then haha). Since I couldn’t take photos with it I kinda forgot about the whole photography thing as this new technology got all my attention – especially the Snake Game. By the years, more fancy cell phones started to pop up on the market – cellphones with built-in cameras! WOW!

When I got my first Sony Ericsson cellphone (with 2 megapixels!!!) my interest in photography came back. I loved to snap photos with my cell phone and I tried to make them as interesting and fun as possible.

My sister Alexandra bought her first DSLR camera when I was around 14-15 years old, and I was so jealous of her. I borrowed it once without her knowing (sorry Alexandra) and I loved taking photos with it. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos back then since I erased all the pictures so she wouldn’t find out haha.

The DSLR cameras were pretty expensive at that time so I bought a digital camera instead – which I took with me almost everywhere. With this camera, I took hundreds of pictures of my friends and I, in school, after school and hundreds of pictures of my cute childhood dogs Catla and Ronja.

Cellphone cameras got better and better, and I eventually bought myself an iPhone 4, and later one an iPhone 5. These were the cameras I used for my pictures until Alex and I bought our first DSLR camera. I couldn’t afford a fancy camera when I was younger but started to save up for one for a while.

Before Alex and I begun our journey as full-time travelers, we bought my (our) first “real” camera – a Nikon D7200. This piece of technology changed my life in some kind of way since today I see the beauty of the world with a new pair of eyes. I started to notice things that I would never have noticed before, and I learned to see all the possibilities to take a good shot. 

I got pretty good at taking photos, learned how to use the camera in manual mode, started to understand the importance of light, usage of different lenses and also how you can take cool photos with longer shutter speed. My interest in photography just got bigger and bigger and I wanted to learn everything possible about photography so I could evolve to become a better photographer.

Today I know so much more about photography, but I can still evolve and learn more to become better at what I do.

While traveling the world, I knew I had a passion for photography but wasn’t sure of what I liked to shoot photos of the most. In my case, I learned that I like to shoot pictures of authentic people, beautiful landscapes, and animals – just because that’s what I love to do the most. 

Photography is an amazing thing where you get to learn to see the beauty of all kinds of things. Before my life as a photographer, I saw things just as I thought they were; spiders as ugly animals, every-day people as boring and I wouldn’t even have noticed the beauty in, for example, a field of dry grass. 

Today I have a new pair of eyes. A close-up shot of a spider can be incredibly beautiful, a field of dry grass taken at golden hour can turn out amazing, and also that it can be super interesting to capture every-day people while they do their daily routines. 

It may sound a bit quirky, but photography and travel have really made me into a better person. To appreciate the small things in life and to appreciate the beautiful world that we’re living in. 

Today we’re shooting with a Nikon D500, and just as much as I love to stand behind the camera taking photos, I love to stand in front of the camera creating photos together with Alex. We’re a team, and we always have so much fun shooting photos together.