The switch to digital photography and the possibility with the emerging social medias has become a new interest for Knut Koivisto. ”There is a big movement around the world to learn about the language of images right now. They are important for us as a way of communication. I think it is fascinating to be a part of this historically important rise taking place right now” he says. His use of the social media platforms as a way of showing his personal work has landed him with different social media related jobs. Among them the two years he photographed and administrated the instagram account of the Swedish ”Fotografiska”.
His interest in images started long before he got his first camera on his fifteenth birthday. Without a clue on how a camera worked he started taking snaps of everything around him. Eventually taking jobs as teacher on photographic night classes and freelancing as a press photographer. But the real challenge begun as he got the job as the assistant to the great Swedish photographer Walter Hirsch in the beginning of 1990’s. ”Walter taught me how to be a photographer and a human being” he says.
In the beginning of 1997 he started his own studio concentrating on corporate portraits and as a still photographer on Swedish major movies and television dramas. It was here on the set he studied the actors, how they move and prepared their characters and he started to collaborate on portraits with them. ”I learned a lot just by standing there next to Swedens best actors and actresses and seeing them work. It has influenced my work immensely!” he says.
He also started to go on photographic workshops. The first years it was the Norwegian photographer Morten Krogvold who served as his mentor. After a couple of years he was invited to be a part of the staff. ”Morten really helped me to focus on my personal photography. There is definitely a before and a after. That’s where my real development started” he says.
It also evoked an interest for more development and other photographic workshops. He’s studied with masters like Albert Watson, Anders Petersen, Bruce Gilden and Antoine D’Agata who he points out as important. He’s also assisted photographers Roger Ballen and Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb on their workshops in Stockholm, Sweden. ”They all had something important to bring into my photography” he says.
About his studies in Art History at Stockholm University he says ”It was an eye opener and helped me see how all things around us are connected in a specific time. It also made me see how photography is just a part of something bigger, the history and legacy of images”.
Today he works in Stockholm, Sweden as a photographer. He teaches portrait workshops and mobile photography around Sweden and abroad. He still carries a camera around every day and photographs what he calls his ”Observations”, one of his many projects.
