Photography Project
by Björn Bröskamp
Last year I went on the Nomad Cruise, a cruise that went from Barcelona, Spain and crossed the Atlantic to Recife, Brasil. The Nomad Cruise builds a community where people share their skills with each other. There are workshops and talks and you’re surrounded by like-minded human beings. People that are their own boss, travel the world and are location independent. This was an amazing experience and I met a lot of interesting, inspiring and beautiful people.
One of these inspiring, quirky persons I met was Björn. I still remember the day I knew I wanted to interview him for this blog. We were talking and he shared some pictures with me he took from the carpets on the boat. Apparently, not all the carpets had the same motive but they all had different ones! It was Björn’s purpose and goal to gather as many different carpet motives he could find on board.
Björn doesn’t see himself as a photographer. “If photography is no more fun for me, I’ll stop doing it.”
“I am a guy that likes to take pictures with his phone and sometimes these pictures tell a story.”
For Björn photography is a hobby, something he really enjoys doing. Mostly, it’s a way for him to share his adventures with his friends and family back home.
More and more though he finds other affinities in capturing the things around him by showing the world from different perspectives, like the carpets. From the moment he shared his carpet project with me, I started to look down while walking on the boat, something I did not do before. He made me look from a different angle and I noticed I was experiencing small, happiness moments when discovering a carpet I didn’t see yet.
The first time Björn used a camera was at his 18th birthday. He got it as a gift and it was a Sony Cybershot with 3.2 megapixels and it was huge and heavy.
“Ever since I can remember, I have been taking pictures on vacations and special occasions. But only since the iPhone cameras got so much better I started to use the camera of my phone, which makes it much easier to take pictures spontaneously.”
Because of this spontaneity, Björn feels it doesn’t have an influence on him being focused on just one thing. Since he does more snapshots and motives that he sees randomly.
“Although, when I find an interesting motive, sometimes my focus shifts and I look for other motives.”
This is also the one tip that he can give to other people out there that simply have an interest in taking photographs as a hobby. “Change your perspective”. When you stand in front of a beautiful cathedral that everyone is taking pictures of, look left and right, up and down or simply turn around.
“By changing your perspective you can create your most amazing experience and take a picture that no one else took before.”
A lot of times, in a lot of situations, seeing the world in a different way is a consequence of taking pictures in a specific way. In Björn’s case, he is saying, it’s the other way around. He always tries to look at the world in a different way and sees the details that most people don’t see.
For him, approaching life already in this unique way is the reason why he’s interested and intrigued by taking pictures from different perspectives.
Björn’s pictures are not perse meant to be shown to the world and shared on social media. It’s not that important for him what people think of them. For him, the most important reason is to share his pictures and stories with his friends and family. He likes to meet friends to talk and show his pictures.
“When this creates a beautiful moment and a laugh, I achieved more than any like on social media.”
Do you also prefer a real-time laugh over a thousand likes on Instagram? Leave a comment and tell us how you feel about that!
Follow Björn Bröskamp 🙂
Check him out on Instagram: @broeselbroem
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