When I’m choosing my subjects I think a lot about the symbols that come with my choice of subject.

Working with troopers

For a long time I’ve worked with Stormtroopers as my main characters. With that choice of subject comes symbols and connotations that I, as a photographer, can’t change. I have to choose to work with or against them. When I am working with my troopers I’ve tried to ask and to find answers to many questions. A few of the questions that I’ve tried to researched are:

-What kind of person is a soldier/general that works for the imperial/rebel side of a war? 
-What does he/she do in his/her spare time?
-How does he/she work? Practice? Play?
-Is there another side of his/her everyday life than just war, death and violence?

In the process of finding answers I’ve made photos, as well as looked at and read other sources to enrich myself. One source, out of many, that I come back to over and over again is Christopher Browning‘s book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. It’s a book about a battalion in Poland during the second world war. He shows the reader how the men in the battalion are a part of the final solution as well as they’re just ordinary men. These men were soldiers, but they’re also ordinary men, fathers and husbands.

Trying to find answers

In one way my choice of subject is a way to ask and find answers to questions. And my photographs are my way of telling you about that process. So in the end, I’m only telling you about who I am and how I see the world…

Kristina