[The Guardian] The big picture: in celebration of youthful freedom

The big picture: in celebration of youthful freedom

In Sven Jacobsen’s painterly images, the young become as one with their environment, seemingly without a care in the world

Sven Jacobsen’s photographs ask interesting questions about innocence and bliss. A new book concentrates on images of youthful freedom; teenagers scale fences and climb trees and plunge into lakes, they skateboard and snog and do headstands and backflips and laugh like they will never, ever stop. Any of the pictures might lead advertising campaigns for spring water or blue jeans or perfume – Jacobsen has worked as a commercial photographer for multinational corporations and knows all the seductive emotions – but there is, too, an extra edge of intimacy and challenge at work. They invite you to recall moments when you felt as alive as the people – family members, friends and models – he depicts. He calls his collection Like Birds.

Jacobsen suggests that when he takes the pictures he is looking always for the “flow of beauty” that might unite the figure with the landscape, a sense of subject and background dissolved. He likens his process to surfing, letting a wave take over and seeing where it takes you. This picture of the underwater swimmer is typical. He captions it as a “painting” for good reason – the scene carries visual reminders of a pre-Raphaelite Ophelia, but the young woman here is very much alive, in her element, not yet ready to break the glassy surface of the water, holding her breath for dear life.

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