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Frá føroyska løgmanni til amerikanska forsetan

Brad Torchia foto

Benjamin Rasmussen, omanfyri, er freelance myndamaður í Denver, Colorado, har hann hevur búð í 8 ár og er giftur Abby Kirkbride. Pápin eru úr Klaksvík og foreldrini vóru trúboðarar sunnantil á Filipsoyggjum, har Benjamin vaks upp.

Nú er hann á hvørjum munni, tí hann við navni eigur forsíðuna á amerikanska vikublaðnum TIME, sum varð stovnað í 1923 og í dag verður prentað í 3 mió eintøkum.

Her skrivar Olivier Laurent á TIME um, hvussu myndarøðin við forsetanum Donald Trump bleiv til.


Á egnu professionellu heimasíðuni sigur Benjamin soleiðis um lívsleiðina, sum higartil kann skiftast í tríggjar partar:

“He spent his childhood with an indigenous people group on an island in the southern Philippines, his university years with evangelicals in a small town in northern Arkansas, and a year with the descendants of Vikings in the Faroe Islands, a nation of 45,000 residents in the middle of the North Atlantic,” sigur Benjamin um seg sjálvan á heimasíðuni, og leggur lakoniskt afturat: “He wrote this, but felt pressured to do so in the third person.”

Her er Benjamin avmyndaður í grøna rúminum í Hvítu Húsunum í Washington, D.C. Fotografur er Kira Pollack, sum er myndaritstjóri á TIME.

Kira Pollack foto

Professionellu upplýsingarnar á heimasíðuni staðfesta síðan, at “In 2014, Benjamin was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch. His work has been selected for the American Photography Annual, shortlisted for the Leica Oskar Barnac Award, and awarded in the 2010 POYi awards. He has been chosen as one of Photolucida’s 2010 Critical Mass Top 50 and included in the Magenta Foundation's Flash Forward - Emerging Photographers 2011 and 2012 lists.”

Benjamin Rasmussen foto

Benjamin, sum í kvøld er ávegis til Føroya at fotografera fyri betri sigur, at hann næstan ongantíð fotograferar politikarar ella søgur, sum eru beinleiðis um politikk.


”But I have known editors at Time for a number of years and have worked with Time Magazine several times over the past year and political stories. My editor there reached out to me a couple of weeks ago asking if I would like to photograph Donald Trump for a cover story. Their reporters had been working to get exclusive access to Trump in the White House residence and they wanted me to photograph the feeling of him in this personal space, outside of the Oval Office.”




Hóast uppgávan var greið, var tað ikki sum at siga tað, at sleppa inn í Hvítu Húsini at fotografera sjálvan forsetan.

“I flew to Washington D.C. and waited in my hotel for a word about when we could go to the White House. I arrived Sunday, waited all day, waited all day Monday and then finally got the word that the White House had canceled. So I went home to Denver, Colorado for a few days and then came back to Washington to try again. We finally got access next Monday. The amount of access changed many times, with many things promised and then changed. In the end, we had a lot of time with the president, nearly three hours. But I was not allowed to photograph for almost all of it and when I could photograph, it was as we were quickly moving from room to room,” sigur Benjamin í kvøld úr Keypmannahavn.


“I knew that this was going to be a cover shoot and we had many different ideas of what to try. But the White House did not allow me to bring an assistant or very much gear. I had no idea if I would be able to be close, or if I would be stuck far away. I knew that the light would be terrible, but also that I couldn’t use a flash in many parts of the White House. I ended up bringing two camera systems, a Pentax 645Z digital medium format and a Nikon d810. The Pentax has beautiful files and looks great at up to 4000 ISO, but is a bit slower, so the Nikon was there to move fast. And I had lenses covered from a 24-70 and 70-200 for the Nikon, as well as a 105 f1.4. And for the Pentax I used only a 75mm and 55mm. The shoot ended up being so fast moving and shifting from room to room and light situation to light situation that I ended up sticking the camera on auto exposure because I didn’t even have time to set an exposure. It was definitely one of the weirder and more stressful shoots I have done,” sigur Benjamin um sjáldsomu uppgávuna, sum eingin annar føroyingur hevur hepnast at fáa, hvørki at sleppa inn í Hvítu Húsini at fotografera forsetan og enn minni at eiga forsíðuna á TIME.


“Trump is photographed a lot, but nearly always it is by the same group of photographs who have to stand in a line while he does something. He very rarely gives access. The two major covers that he has posed for since the election are for British photographer Nadav Kander for Time and for American Christopher Anderson of Magnum for the New York Times Magazine. Those are two of my favorite photographers, so entering the White House knowing that my job was to try and create something that would exist alongside their visual representation of him was terrifying,” sigur Benjamin Rasmussen, sum nú stendur í altjóða ljósi sum fotografur.

Fyrr veit eg bara um Bárð Eklund, sum hevur havt eina mynd á forsíðuni á eini altjóða avís, fronsku Le Figaro, sum fyrstu ferð kom út í 1826 og nú verður prentað í 317.000 eintøkum. Bárð prátaði eg við í Dimmalætting í 2006 undir yvirskriftini Til ytstu skapandi mørk.

Niðanfyri hevur Corey H. Jones fotograferað Benjamin í sambandi við egna framsýning um lógligan marijuana gróður í Colorado.


Og her er at enda ein mynd av heimasíðuni hjá Benjamini av Føroya løgmanni, Kaj Leo Holm Johannessen, undan seinasta løgtingsvali.

Uttan at taka nakað frá nøkrum, kann ikki sigast annað, enn at tað miðvíst gongur framá við fotografisku uppgávunum, frá føroyskum løgmanni, umvegis flóttafólk í Sýria, til amerikanska forsetan Donald Trump.

Til lukku við fotografiska avrikinum, Benjamin!