The Picture of Their Life #1

The Picture of Their Life #1 – Laerke Posselt
www.picturalis.fr
The picture of their life is our new monthly column that explores the world to meet
international photographers. They tell us how a famous picture has changed their way to
work.
Lærke Posselt, 28, is a Danish
photojournalist focusing on social
issues and human conditions.
Already as a student, she won
numerous national and international
prizes, including World Press Photo
and Pictures Of the Year. Her
recent projects include “Beautiful
Child”, which is about child beauty
pageants.
Lærke, about the Jacob Aue Sobol photography:
“This photo by the Danish Magnum photographer Jacob Aue Sobol is taking us to a place where
we are rarely allowed. The very intimate, private moment of first love between two people we don't
know. The two teenagers lie naked together and between them is nothing else than a gaze
containing an enormous amount of energy. The parted lips of the girl give the whole frame a
tension. They make me hold my breath like she seems to be doing. In her eyes there is a
devotion that seems absolute and maybe naïve.
In its contrasted, almost charcoal-like registration of the bodies, the photo is very graphic and has
a beautiful composition. It doesn’t explain too much. It talks the language of our hearts, not
our brains.
© Jacob Aue Sobol
Love is such a fundamental, timeless and always important theme. The pictures I am inspired by
are pictures with this kind of existential themes. For this image I don’t really care about learning to
know who they are, where they live and why they are together. All I care about is that moment
and the reflection of my own experiences of love and intimacy.
To me, there are two types of important photography: pictures that show us what is
happening to the world we live in, and those that tell about what is happening inside us. As
a documentary photographer, my constant aim is to try and combine these two. When I get an
assignment, I am most often asked at least to show what is happening in front of the camera and
how. With inspiration from the more existential kind of photography, I always try to approach the
why.
With the innovation of the digital mobile camera everybody can contribute to the documentation of
the world we live in. But being able to communicate more than the surface still takes some skills in
psychology, sociology, sensitivity, and visual language, that takes years to build. And as I see it,
this is where we, as photojournalists, can find our justification.”
You can find all Lærke’s work on her website !