One of the residential homes for the elderly that ISU work with is Tårnby Plejehjem. Yes that IS in Danish, and no, I'm not completely sure that I have it spelled right. I was asked to fly back out to Denmark to repeat the same scenario as before, but this time insead of my subject being female asylum seekers, it was to be welfare and quality of life for the elderly.
This project for me was very challenging, we all know that the elderly are very photogenic but it wasn't that simple this time. When photographing the elderly I like to sit down with them and talk to them, listen to their stories (of which they have an incredibly amount). Not only does this approach engage them with you, and gain their trust, it culminates in succesful images. My problem this time was that none of these elderly folk understood a word of English, so I couldn't flirt with old ladies and gain their smiles very easily. There was only one gentleman that could speak english, and he was a war veteran who fought for the Danish Resistance. Fascinating.
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