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Ever since he first achieved his breakthrough in the early 1990s, Magnus Reed, born in 1965, has been one of Sweden’s leading photographers, known both for his fashion reportage and portraits and for his advertising, images and commercials. Throughout the whole of his career Reed has also pursued his own photograpic projects alongside his commercial and editorial commissions. ”Fin de Sieglo” from Havana is the biggest and most important of these personal projects.

As a young man, Magnus Reed tried a number of professions before he fell for photography more or less by accident whilst travelling in war-torn Afghanistan in the mid-1980s. He learned the basics of the profession during a three-year stint as an assistent to the world-renowned swedish photographer Mikael Jansson, who became a mentor to Reed. He made a name for himself immediately after finishing his training under Jansson, with a long series of acclaimed fashion photo-shoots, both editorial and commercial. He started working on commercials in the early 1990’s and quckily became one of Swedens most respected and sought-after photographers in this field, too.

After teen years in the profession Magnus Reed is a respected name, not just in Sweden but also internationally. He has editorial and commercial clients all over the world.

For Reed himself, his own private photographic projects have become more and more important. These include a major documentary film and stills project with American beatnik writer Herbert Hunke, who has since died. The project has been in progress since the early 1990’s.

Magnus Reed first came to Cuba in 1995, to work on an advertising photo shoot for the italian fashion company Benetton. He fell for Cuba and Havana immediately and since then has returned a dozen times. He has come to regard Havana as a second home and has even set up his own office and photolab in the city.


”Fin de Sieglo”

A photgraphic documentation of Havana at the end of the 20th Century.

”In some strange way Cuba had been in my mind long before I ever went there,” says photographer Magnus Reed. ”The first time I went to the Malicon promenade I got goosebumps. It was fantastic to meet all the people who were just there, hanging out and passing the time of the day. I realized how badly I had missed this kind of simply and spontaneous way of being around people at home in Sweden. We had moved to far away from that. When I walk down the street in Stockholm I ask myself – where are all the children? And of course there’re sitting at home in front of the TV, surfing the net or playing computer games.”

”I grew up in an age when there was still only two TV channels in Sweden and in those days people actually trusted the channels,” continues Reed. ”Now the media society is everywhere and the only thing you can be sure of is that you can’t trust anyone. In 20 years time, what will become of the children who are growing up with this level of media consumption? It’s something I think about a lot, something that frightens me. Everything is beautiful and uglified, it’s so screwed up. Even sex, the best thing there is, has been talked to death. How exciting can it be to get your hand up a girl’s blouse in an age when we are bombarded with naked breasts where ever we go? 50 years ago it was like striking gold in the desert – now teenagers want advanced sex the first time they meet. It´s scary.”

One one level, ”Fin de Sieglo” project is the simplest photographic project imaginable. Magnus Reed has set up a traditional large-scale camera at various places in Havana and photographed people on the street.

At the same time this type of photography is time-consuming, costly and technically complicated. Reed has choosen the largest of all photorgaphic formats, 8`/10`, where the negative is 8x10 inches. The negatives are loaded in the cassettes, one at a time. Every exposure demands careful setting and planning.

”This format is unbeatable for describing the details in the images exactly as the eyes sees them,” he says. ”The pictures are so sharp that you can see the structure in a shoelace of someone walking on the other side of the street. It is just like painting. You can look at the pictures for a lenght of time.”

So far, Magnus Reed has carried out three photo sessions and taken several hundred photographs. The project should be completed by the end of the century, by which time he expects to have taken 2,000 pictures.

”I don´t know what will happen to Cuba and Havana in the 21st century, but this is my way of documenting what it looks like today, at the end of 20th century,” says Reed. ”In Cuba I have acquired a great love of the simple things, the small details, all the human interraction that occurs spontaneously in the streets. When I am in Havana, taking photographs it feels almost as if I am outside my own body, as if I am a visitor to earth. I can really see the beauty in the common place and sometimes it feels almost as if I can read the thoughts of the people I see. For me there is incredible drama, a fantastic sensuality in the simple scenes that are beeing played out on the streets. It is at least as exciting as going to the cinema.”

Magnus Reed is careful to stress that ” Fin de Sieglo” is not a political project. His pictures focus on the beautiful and positive elements of peoples everyday lives.

”As a person, I am both completely apolitical and extremely political at the same time. But with this project I want to use my professional skills to highlight what lies beneath all this, the things that are really worth something.”


Claes Britton

Exhibitions
2000 ”Fin de Sieglo” portrait of Havana in Kulturhuset, Stockholm
”Fin de Sieglo” portrait of Havana at the convento San Francisco
de Aziz, Havana, Cuba.



CV
1985-1986 Having photography as a main interest in life Magnus started
travel to countries like Afganistan during the war etc taking
reportage pictures.

1986-1989 Assisting photographer Mikael Jansson.

1990- Opened up his own studio at the age of 25 and started doing
documentary, advertising, fashion and film for clients worldwide.
Also started working on the documentary about the beatnik
Herbert Huncke also including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso
And many more.