Nørrebro, "A dangerous place"

Nørrebro is a dangerous part of Copenhagen, where different ethnic cultures collide, gangs and violence rule the streets and you can never feel safe walking there. People get shot, stabbed and robbed on a daily basis and the tour guides recommend that you don't stroll around on Nørrebro by yourself...
 ...According to the media, that is!

I've lived in most parts of Copenhagen and Nørrebro has been the one part, I have loved the most! Stuff do happen here, but just the same as anywhere else in the world.

I remember my mom called me one day and said to me 'Kenneth, you have to be safe, don't walk around alone, etc.', I was like, what the hell are you talking about, mom?? 'and she replied 'They say in the news that Nørrebro is a dangerous place to be'.

In my 8-9 years in Copenhagen I've never seen any of the stuff that the media so often describes, besides the riot in 2007. I guess, as anywhere else, the media in Denmark thrives on fear and making everything 10 times worse than it is. Nørrebro is a big multi-cultural mash-up, but a mash-up filled with love and a lot of life and joy!

So a few months ago, before I went business travelling, I did a huge assignment on Nørrebro for Euroman - about ten pages. Euroman wanted to show a different side of Nørrebro, the good side, that the media find uninteresting to talk about.

I went out for a week during the mornings, afternoon, evenings, late nights and early mornings in the weekend trying to capture the heart and atmosphere of Nørrebro, wandering around and about knocking on random doors and asking random people in the streets to pose for me. Nothing dangerous about that ;-)

These are the shots that didn't made it into the magazine!

Remember to buy this month's issue of Euroman, where the danish director Nicolas Winding Refn is on the cover.

Distortion 2013 in black and white!

I've participated in Distortion the last 4-5 years and every year it's been crazy. I've always had my camera with me and ever since that first real Distortion it's been my ture companion, all the way. But somehow this year, I didn't feel like shooting pics as much as before. You see people taking pictures everywhere you go, either with a SLR camera or with smart phones etc. So for once I felt I could leave it in my backpack and just go and en enjoy what I wanted to see and hang out with my friends.
I did shoot a little and this time I chose to edit them in black in white, just to do something different from my previous Distortion party pics!

Thx for now Distortion, you almost killed me;-)

One of my blogger colleagues, Kristoffer Dahy Ernst, wrote a really good article about Distortion, so if you are danish, you definately must check that out :-)
www.euroman.dk  




My buddies from Retelly did some very cool video reporting from Distortion.
I have a few words to say in the first episode and with a full Asian flush...