Great Danes: Politiken's Per Folkver On Denmark's Photojournalism

How is it that Denmark, a country with a population roughly the size of Wisconsin, has in the past decade produced so many internationally acclaimed, visually sophisticated photojournalists? Per Folkver, picture editor in chief of the award-winning Copenhagen daily, Politiken (one of the PDN Players profiled in this year's Photo Annual) discusses the strengths of the Danish photo community. He also talks about his own newspaper and its support for excellent photojournalism.

What is this Danish photography stuff, people ask me. I think there are four reasons for [its success].

First, some 12 or 14 years ago, the Danish School of Journalism added a line for photojournalism. It's not a photo school, it's a journalism school. What happens in journalism school is that photographers learn to think, and I've never heard of a photographer being worse for learning to think. And of course, they learn how to be journalists.

A second reason is that Denmark is the same size as Hamburg (Germany), about 5.3 million people, and the photography environment is small. In France, Italy, the US, photographers are very competitive. Six of them will go to a paper, all with the same idea. In Denmark we haven't allowed competition to ruin the discussion: We help each other, sharing knowledge, sharing ideas. Fifteen years ago the press photographer association created a conference that would bring the best photographers from outside the country; Salgado has come to talk, Eugene Richards, Paolo Pellegrin is coming to talk.

The will for discussion about photography is very strong in Denmark. If we don't talk about photography, we don't learn. We need to discuss the language of photography. We know there are very few inventive photographers working in the world. We are all standing on the shoulders of Cartier-Bresson, Frank, Koudelka, Davidson, Nan Goldin, but how do we go further?

We know that it is very hard to ask a simple question with photography, but there is a movement now to strip away the levels, to be simple. We are realizing that the slowness of photography is [why it will] survive. We're not breaking news; if you want that, turn on CNN. We have the opportunity to say, maybe we should look further, to look behind this matter, because TV won't do that. That's what will happen when we realize we still need photography. Look at the pictures from after the tsunami. The breaking news is gone forever, but the photos that were taken after it are very important. And they are slow, and they are silent.

The third reason for [the strength of] Danish photography is that it was published. That sounds so banal but it's very important, because you don't know if your work is good or bad or if it communicates until it is published. As a photographer for Politiken you will often see your picture in 8 columns, half a page. That's not uncommon.

The fourth reason is that talent creates more talent. When Bjorn Borg had won five championships in tennis, 100 Swedes began to play tennis. Why? They saw that it could be done.

Instead of everyone being jealous because you are winning awards, in Denmark, we are happy that you are winning because when it's good for you. it's good for me.

I don't like this term "stars" when speaking of photographers. The staff photographers of Politiken are very highly respected but they do every assignment, the good and the bad. It could be: Take a picture of a flower or, for the Sat. edition, could you do the 10 best knives. When I came to Politiken,, some earlier staff photographers had [been internationally recognized] and the rest thought they should try to be like them or do like them because they were the stars. I worked to have them understand that the difference between them isn't a minus, it's a plus.

The people in my editorial room, they will listen to the picture editors because they know we are listening to them. It's not a war. [In] the photo department? we have strong ideas and strong beliefs, but a newspaper is a collective piece of work, no one is doing this alone. I see the newspaper as one big picture, so sometimes I'm the guy who's saying, "This picture is too big." The editors will say, "Wait, you are saying a photo is too big?" I say, "Yes, what I see is that you suddenly lost an article so you are running the photo 7 columns instead of 6. But it's not that great a picture." We cannot look at the photos separate from the paper [as a whole.]

Recently we had a discussion with the editor about the front page. Because it's a broadsheet, it's folded. You will have a big picture, 6 or 7 columns, and above the fold you will see half a face or something. The editor gave everyone ten minutes to say what they thought. Afterwards I went to him and said: "Look, we've talked about this before, but we'll never know if it works to move the photo unless we create a situation in which we move it five days in a row. Can we make it a rule that we move it five days in a row because we have to?" And he said ok. You have to ritualize it.

My job is to make the [word] editors understand that this language [of photography] is important. It's a daily challenge. My work at Politiken starts at 9:00, and it's a daily lecture. That's ok, I don't get tired of repeating. I know it makes a difference.