Why the cover of Jonas Bendiksen’s Satellites can be seen as a motivational poster

Magnum photos just published a little article regarding the cover of Jonas Bendiksen’s Satellites on their blog. It is the story behind one of my favorite photographs. I once had the pleasure to attend a workshop with Jonas Bendiksen and we had a chat about it. I might have an interesting fact to add: did you realize that it is shot on negatvive film, although he was using slide film at that time?

Jonas Bendiksen during his Masterclass in Berlin

That is due to the fact that he was a little short on slide film during that day and had only some random rolls left in his bag. You know these rolls yourself, they are the ones that are at the bottom of your photo bag forever and only get used when there’s no other possibility. So given that the weather condition sucked, the film being ISO 160 there was no proper material to use, this can also be seen as a motivational story: don’t take bad weather or the wrong film/camera for it as an excuse not to go out to take pictures. You never know what this day has prepared for you, or in this case: you never know if the weather changes, accompanied by a million white butterflies.