Being Explored by the Landscape

Theodor Paues

Theodor Paues is a Swedish amateur photographer, based in Stockholm. When not shooting, he runs a public affairs consultancy. He’s married with two children.

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My first job was at a newspaper in Stockholm, I was there for about a year. On the last day, my co-workers gave me a send-off gift. It was a toy farm. Their tongue-in-cheek idea was that I should spend time in my flat playing with the small plastic animals, as a way to safely prepare myself for the concept of country life.

It was a joke, but it was true. I was very much a city kid, preferring to be indoors or taking the odd walk in a park. The gift didn’t change much; I stayed indoors for most of my adult life. Years later, when I met my wife to be, she was quite shocked realising I did not own any outdoor wear. No wellies, no wind-breakers, nothing waterproof. It wasn’t until photography that things changed.

Today, I find myself going out into nature as often as I possibly can. Currently, I work on a project in a wetland close to Stockholm, where I wade waist-deep in icy water most of the time. It’s as damp and muddy as it could ever be.

Photography has the capacity to change the life of those who practice it. And maybe particularly so for landscape photography. It has definitely changed me

In an earlier article in On Landscape, I told the story of my first year in landscape photography, how I picked it up not so much out of love for the outdoors, but as a challenge and a desire to learn and perfect a new craft.