Anders Petersen, City Diary

Anders Petersen

City Diary

Erstausgabe, Steidl 2012, #1-2-3

Anders Petersen's books are some of the most collectable produced by any living photographer. City Diary is the beginning of an open-ended book series, commencing with 3 volumes in October 2009, which will be added to periodically. Together they will comprise one of the most exciting book works ever made.

“I’m a kind of diary photographer. I try not to take pictures as I see them, but as I feel them. I’m interested in imperfection.” Anders Petersen Since the 1960s Anders Petersen has been documenting life beyond the margins of polite society, a world including prostitutes, transvestites, alcoholics, night-time lovers and adult conflict. Petersen photographs his subjects with a candid somewhat detached eye, and is able to disclose unpleasant realities such as drug abuse with a sense of bewilderment and currency. City Diary is an ambitious series of books showing Petersen’s ongoing photographic engagement with life in the shadows in cities including Stockholm, Tokyo and St Petersburg. The first three volumes of City Diary appear here together; the others will follow as and when they are ready – just as life unfolds around Petersen on his travels.

Born in Stockholm in 1944, Anders Petersen is one of the most important European photographers working today. Throughout his career Petersen has consistently challenged photographic conventions, beginning with his photographs of late-night regulars in a Hamburg bar in the 1960s, which subsequently became the seminal book Café Lehmitz. Between 1966 and 1968 Petersen studied with Christer Strömholm, and has since published more than 20 books.