Gritty, grainy, and ever-so-real: welcome to the photos of Anders Petersen.
I have seen the work of Swedish photographer, Anders Petersen before (you may have too, see below), but until I came across this latest overview of his work, aptly titled Anders Petersen, I did not fully understand the depth and range of his photographic canon.
His most famous work is the Cafe Lehmitz photos. The patrons of this Hamburg bar seem both charismatically hostile and human. Petersen took pictures here for nearly three years and slept in the kitchen, so that might explain the level of intimacy he established with its regulars.
Here are two regulars you might have seen before: Rose and Lilly.
You might better recognize it as the cover art from Tom Waits’ album Rain Dogs.
It’s fitting that Waits was drawn to this image. Petersen’s gritty world of prostitutes, drug addicts and general fringe-dwellers resonates with the same seedy energy and humanity of the early Asylum-Era Waits material. But again, that’s just one piece of Petersen’s work.
“To me, it’s encounters that matter, pictures are much less important.” – Anders Petersen
(the above photo really illustrated the power of the unspoken in photography…)
[This was made post is in partnership with Total Echo]
