In his new book, I Would Like You to See This, Brønseth pairs moments of intimate friendship and human connection with wild, natural abandon. Take a look behind the cover here...
Lars Brønseth’s flash-heavy, tongue-in-cheek images have a beguiling air of spontaneity. It wasn’t until the Norwegian photographer took stock of about 500 pictures, taken over the past three years, that the through lines became obvious. “I started seeing diptychs – images that did not picture the same motif, but still had similarities in shape, colour and dynamics,” he says. “It made me realise that what I had been shooting was all connected in a different way.”
The exercise culminated in, I Would Like You to See This, a self-published, tightly-edited cobalt blue book (the colour is one of Brønseth’s signatures) available, fittingly, in an edition of 500. Filled with friends and animals, landscape details and even bits of trash, each photo spread tells its own narrative. Brønseth sees the book not only as a way to catalogue his work, but also as a means to “move on”. As he puts it, “I feel by publishing this book, something ends, and something new starts.”
Below, Brønseth offers the story behind a handful of the most arresting images in I Would Like You to See This.
Photo: Lars Brønseth
Photo: Lars Brønseth
"Starting the book with my dear friend Josefine getting undressed in a tree, next to a deer felt like the only way. The picture of the deer came on a day where I was hunting for green parquets in Richmond Park. The temperature was soaring 38 degrees, and the birds where lazy and not moving at all, so I decided to lay down on the grass, to observe what was around me."
“Two pictures taken two years apart. One during a time of desperation when I was going through a breakup and, the other exploring the fun you can have if you allow yourself to play and explore the world with someone new.”
Photo: Lars Brønseth
“Simply too similar not to be paired, but also miles apart. Human vs. nature.”
“I wanted to include Carl so badly. This picture is one of many I have taken of him, but one of the few where he is just straight up against the wall, his hair dyed for a commercial job. I couldn’t figure out what would be a good pair until I found this picture of Annica’s foot, with traces of paint from one of our first private performances: pretending to be in a Yves Klein show in a dodgy hotel in Milano.”
I Would Like You to See This is now available for purchase. You can find it here.