#minimal in Trondheim, Norway
Using Instagram to document life in Trondheim, Norway, Jan Ove paints a clean and peaceful picture of his hometown. Working as a graphic designer/illustrator, Jan takes a fairly symmetrical approach to his Instagram compositions, which often show a quality mix of both the nature and architecture of Trondheim. Be sure to check out and follow his extremely beautiful feed here @janove.
Tell us about your photographs: My pictures often show a nature/culture combination. I like to try and find something that makes a shot somewhat surprising and exotic to people in other parts of the world. It might be some strange old building or a unique scenery. They might be regular everyday things to us, so I have to pay attention to my surroundings and try to notice that everyday things that might actually be pretty nice and unique.
Place You Live: I live in Trondheim, Norway.
Can you sum up Trondheim? The country’s 3rd largest city, and in Norway that means 179,000 people 🙂 In a place like Trondheim everything is pretty calm, safe, clean and a little bit boring. The good kind of boring. Norway was a poor country up until the 70’s (oil) so there´s a lot of relics/old stuff from our peasant past which I find interesting and eye pleasing! In small big city like Trondheim and it’s surroundings you find a nice mix of urban and rural culture. You have the fjord, the mountains and the stuff in between. I like it.
For the visitor? If in Trondheim you should visit the cathedral Nidarosdomen, Stroll around Bakklandet and visit the café Bakklandet Skydsstation, walk along the fjord on the path Ladestien, check out the small wooden houses in Ilsvikøra, take the boat out to Munkholmen and take a trip out of town and check out the small/stange/ugly/pretty places and the nature surrounding the city.
Best Meal in the City? Klubb in the restaurant Tavern
How long have you been using Instagram? Consciously since february 2012. One year!
Camera phone? Started out on iPhone 4. Now iPhone 5.
What apps do you use, if any to edit your photos? Nowadays I almost always use Snapseed to crop, tune, sharpen and often add a “Vintage” filter with adjustments (always completely removing “texture”) Sometimes I also use VSCO with some of the preset adjustments. Then finally I might also use a filter on top in Instagram.
Do you create images outside of Instagram? I do. No pro photographer. Also a graphic designer / illustrator.
How has Instagram effected you and your work? Instagram has had two major strange effects on me and my work. One is the 1:1 ratio. I now almost find it hard to work with picture formats that aren’t 1:1. 🙂 My shots on Instagram are ALWAYS square. The other effects is how I observe my surroundings. Even though I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures I’m now much more aware of everything visual and I’m always wondering how this and that would fit in a square. It is in one way a very good thing, but it can also be pretty anoying to others when I have to capture everything on my way in case it’ll make a good addition to my feed.
The work of all the great people on Instagram has of course had an effect on what and how I shoot.
Who are your three favorite Instagrammers? Hard to pick three: @elinlia, @xjustdrew, @photographerclaesthimar