Free Montecore by Jonas Hassen Khemiri Page B

My success was not particularly abrupt. Frequent were the photographers who detailed that they unfortunately could not assist an assistant who does not cultivate the Swedish language. My arguments that the world of images does not automatically require linguistic exactness were ignored.
    Luckily enough, one of Pernilla’s colleagues has introduced me to a Swedish-Finnish photographer by the name Raino. Raino is specialized in the delicate art that we call food photography. His eyelashes shine like white mammals above his reddened nose. His mustache is of yellowed walrus model and his drinking habits are unmoderate. The studio is very modern in comparison with Achraf’s primitive utensils, however. It is localized in the luxurious neighborhood of Flemingsberg, near Stockholm. I pass circa twenty hours per week in service to Raino, developing potatoes au gratin, warmly steaming Falukorv, and delicious pâtés. I am learning many special tricks. For example, do you know how one photographs the most delicate portrait of a cup of coffee? One fills the cup with soy sauce mixed with a few foaming drops of dish soap. Consequently one escapes the uglifying surface coating! Methods like these reinflate my fascination with the magic of photography. Which other expression has such a privileged relation to reality that it can grow one’s appetite for coffee at the sight of a cup of soy sauce?
    When the customers of photo tasks are limited, I assist Raino with other services. 4
    The position with Raino strengthens my routine, but the economy offered me is nonexistent. The weight of the worth lies in the chance to be able to polish my own projects. Let me take the opportunity here to repeat my thankfulness for your generously delegatedeconomy. Thanks to your loan my arrival in Sweden has not been honorless; I have not had to profit from Pernilla’s finances, and in addition I have invested myself a new system camera.
    The multitude of motifs in this country is monstrously many to me. In every neighborhood, at every metro station, through every window it seems to me motifs lie brooding, awaiting their documentation. Sometimes it experiences me as inspiring, sometimes as stressful. 5
    Today the spring was invited to Stockholm. The sun shone in the typical Swedish way; it dazzled one’s eyes without offering more than the superficial warmth of the skin. Pernilla was at work, Raino had liberated me early, and I wandered my solitary steps through central Stockholm. Soon I parked my body on a bench in a park that in Swedish is given the name Humlans Gård. On the opposite side of the street was localized a sunshined corner; birds chirped, and everything was maximized harmony. Then I suddenly noticed a man who was swinging his briefcase, flapping his skinny tie, stressing his clomping steps, and glancing his wrist …
    “A typical office drone,” I thought. “Run farther, you poor slave, while we artists delight sunshine on parkish benches.”
    Then something bizarre occurred. When he turned around the corner of the neighborhood and collided with the sunlight, he was hypnotized into stillness. He stopped his steps in slow motion, localized his body to the vicinity of the wall, stretched his neck like an odor-searching dog, closed his eyes, and then … he just stood there. Like a statue. And enjoyed with a heavenly expression, whichof course I documented with my camera. The interesting thing was that he was not solitary in his behavior. ALL of Stockholm was filled with compatible patterns this first spring day; in EVERY sunshined neighborhood, at every bus stop, on every square they stood, suddenly placed out, all the neatly dressed office Swedes with the same backward-tilting head, delighting mouth, and closed eyes. Hundreds of people who sought the first blessing of light like thirsting plants. Often accompanied by a noise trickling from their lips that is best described like this: Mmmm. My camera documented this bizarre behavior and