ishootRAWpunk is dead!
24/8/2025 Jakobstad
Image from "Punken är död", Gothenburg 2022 and has nothing to do with the text.
This fucking Sunday wasn't an easy day to wake up to->
Let’s talk about ecosystems, about balance, about interaction – but the truth is that it’s often a lie. A functioning ecosystem requires respect, reciprocity, and that everyone who contributes is treated as a necessary part. But what I’ve seen is the exact opposite. I’ve documented scenes, people, and expressions for years, but time and time again my work has been treated as an obvious resource to pull out when convenient, and shoved aside when it becomes uncomfortable. The hierarchy is clear: some stand higher up, others are supposed to stay at the bottom and just deliver. That’s not an ecosystem – that’s exploitation.
I know many people appreciate my photos, and for you it might feel unfair that I now stop sharing in the same way. But this is bigger than that. This is about principle. Too many times my work has been reduced to something only meant for some, only when it suits them. That game is over.
And let me be crystal clear: nobody needs to ask anymore if they can use my photos – because the answer is a big FUCKING NO. My photos are not free, not public property, not something to leech off to build your own facade. They are my work, my time, my energy, my blood. They don’t belong to the bands, not the organizers, not the scene. They belong to me. Anyone who thinks otherwise only proves exactly how skewed this system really is.
ishootRAWpunk will continue – but on my terms, not anyone else’s. I will never again ask for free entry in exchange for photos. I will never again apply for media passes or accreditation. That circus is over. Unfortunately, there’s always a small clique that ruins it for everyone else, and here we are.
From the start my idea was simple: my photos were never primarily for the present, but for the future. Not to be thrown into the noise for quick consumption and instant forgetting, but to remain as documents of time. Maybe they will only surface thirty or forty years from now, when the posters have been torn down, when the memories begin to fade, when everything that once felt so important in the moment is gone. Then my photos can speak. Then they can show who was there, who shouted, who built something on their own terms. That’s where the real value lies, not in feeding someone else’s hunger in the present.
This is a critique of a system that doesn’t work. I will no longer be the one delivering for free to others, the one inviting into an “ecosystem” that in reality is just a pyramid where a few take for themselves while the rest are silently drained. I will continue, but on my terms. Slowly, uncompromisingly, with my eyes fixed on a future where the photos will speak when everything else has gone quiet.
And finally: thanks to those who have supported me through the years – you know exactly who you are. The rest can FOAD. The biggest thanks goes to the Fragile Mountain Punk Festival Crew, you´re the fucking best. You’ve always shown what it’s really about.
www.ishootrawpunk.net will be closed.