Two days off and I’m back with the very interesting story about Jan Schjetne, a fashion photographer working in London and Oslo. Sit back and enjoy, he’s such a worthy guy.

Jan never really thought much about photography before he got into photo blogging. He was a web developer back in the days, and he built a photo diary for Mr. Naughty James and his 1095 Project. Jan also built his own photo diary as well, borrowed a digital camera from the advertising agency he worked in, and started photographing his life and experiences. He got really into it, and started imagining a professional life with camera in hand.

I guess that’s where my kind of random snapshot style comes from.

Jan taught himself to photograph by observing the world around him, the people at the parties he went to, all his friends, his girlfriends, pretty much everything he saw. Today Jan still care more for his diary style photographs than his professional, properly lit photographs.

Jan studied in London, at a fashion photography course at University of the Arts. Those were truly the most exciting and challenging years of his interesting life. It was fantastic, but he knows that he would never want to live that life again. Strange or not, it’s history.

As a fashion photographer and a student in London you’re constantly surrounded by chaos, drugs, parties, booze, women… And I got sucked right into that lifestyle.

He’s back in safe and comfortable Norway now, and he often thinks back at his time in London as a time when he could truly challenge himself through his work.

The photographers I look up to aren’t the photographers who light beautifully or get the best models and stylists, but the photographers who put themselves in situations with
interesting subject matter.

A girl rolling around naked in front of the sofa at a party, a couple still dancing around at 7 in the morning, oblivious to the fact that the party ended hours ago, friends having a toke in the back seat of a taxi, etc. That is the reality that truly makes great snapshots.

Jan does almost everything. Through what feels like a long life he has gathered skills that make him able to be a photographer, graphic designer, web developer, Flash developer and general know-it-all.

Ever since Jan was a kid he has thought about his goals for life and it’s never deviated from “If it feels good, do it!”. A few years ago Jan met a girl, Hilde that soon became his girlfriend (though she’s back to being just a friend now). They pumped each other up, they discussed photography 20 hours of the day, and they pushed each other to becoming better photographers.

A 1000 ideas a day, a few of them realised.

Together, Jan and Hilde wanted to make stuff, break stuff. They hooked up with a couple of guys and founded a website called Phiary, a photo diary website where people could share their daily snapshots. They are still working on it, slowly making it become the photo diary website they all want to use themselves.

About the featured photo set, Tom and Emma

Tom and Emma are two of Jan’s very best friends. They let him live in their house when he had nowhere else, and they’ve been fantastic in every way since he first met them. This whole series was conceived when Jan needed to test situation photography for his graduation project at university. It started as a test, but the whole shoot became such a great experience and the photos came out above all expectation. They were all drunk and blazed by the end of the night, stumbling around like the idiots they are. Jan said, the fight scene could have been better but by that point they couldn’t see straight so whatever went down was how it would end up on his camera.

That’s it, thank you Jan for sharing your awesome story. Hope you will have something wow-like-this for us soon. Dear readers do not forget about the DwA’s first giveaway: Wallpaper alert! Take part and win a cool gift because it’s so simple. Read more here!