Streets of the World
Dutch photojournalist Jeroen Swolfs embarks on a journey to document the most public spaces from around the world.
July 2009, Dutch photojournalist Jeroen Swolfs embarked on a six-year journey for his project Streets of the World. The goal of the project is to create an image of what the world and humanity looks like at the beginning of the 21st century and make a photo book featuring all capitals in the world.
I’ve Always Wanted to Have a Camera in My Head.
Jeroen Swolfs takes photos of typical street life in the center of all the capitals in the world and travels at high speed: in approximately 4 days per country he talks to locals to find out which street is the best scene for a photo that fits his project, walks and drives around to find the perfect spot and takes around 800 photos per city to eventually select one that tells a story about that particular city and what people are doing. As a journalist, Swolfs has made several reportages about political refugees in Serbia, a tsunami at Samoa, life in North Korea but Streets of the World is all about a positive outlook on today’s world. “This is a story about us, a story about people. When I started this project, I wanted to show the differences between people all over the world. But the more I see, the more I’m drawing the conclusion that we are so much more alike than we think. I truly enjoy proving myself wrong. I mean, diversity is of course enormous and I can see that the standard of living in Haiti and Denmark can hardly be compared, but bottom line is that all people in the streets are busy doing the same things, such as making a living and caring for their families.”
Swolfs has been using Hipstamatic since he was in Latin America. “I’ve always wanted to have a camera in my head. Impossible of course. But so many things you see happening happen so fast that it’s to late to get your big camera from your bag. The moment’s already gone. That’s why I’m so happy with the smartphone. It is superfast. The combination with Hipstamatic results in supercool photos which I would otherwise in many cases not have had. I also like that you never really know what you’re gonna get. With my project I have a very strict concept within which I photograph. With Hipstamatic I just shoot and see what happens. Always exciting to see what comes out of it. Some really don’t work that well. Others I would really have difficulties
getting myself with an conventional camera. Hipstamatic does a really good job once you start getting how the different films and lenses work. It’s fast, unexpected and good quality. And a lot of fun.”
Swolfs is a unique globetrotter who will have visited and photographed ALL the countries of the world at the end of his journey. An achievement very few people will reach. He has been on the road for 3 years now and has photographed 92 countries. He is currently traveling the African continent.
“I know that professional photographers are starting to use Hipstamatic more and more because we are talking about it. In the beginning I think it was seen as somewhat of a threat because suddenly everybody could make cool shots with their phones. But I think now that you should see it as an opportunity, as I’ve explained earlier, to be able to make more cool shots yourself in a way that wasn’t possible before. And in the end your quality as a photographer has not so much to do with your equipment but with the story you want to share. The story you choose. A story which is uniquely yours. Hipstamatic is a new way of being able to do that and has enabled me to take photos I would otherwise not have taken.”
