Kristofer Dan-Bergman is a prolific and inquisitive Swedish photographer based in NYC. Both his commercial and fine art photography possess the clean, graceful and elegant aesthetic synonymous with forward-thinking Swedish design. United Creators talked at length with Mr. Dan-Bergman about his iconic photography,his creative motivation and how his cultural influences have manifested in his artistic output.

You are an accomplished commercial photographer. Lately, your fine art photography has also been attracting a lot of attention through your exhibitions and installations. How different is your approach to image-making for your personal fine art photography than that of your commercial assignments?

Quite different. First, in a commercial assignment, you have a definite plan, layout, or something similar to work with. It also involves a slew of people. With fine art photography, I work alone even when it involves people and my plans are not set in stone.

Usually, I only have the germ of an idea, and once I'm working on it, it starts changing and evolving. God only knows how long it will take. But I need that time to see if the idea will work, and also to get it out of my head, my system and to move forward. Otherwise, the ideas eat me up, little by little. It is a painful process most of the time. Things don't always turn out the way you have imagined it. You then have to go back in "defeat" and try to rekindle your spirit again. One thing in this process that is very important to me is to lose the fear of "failure" or rather try to grow stronger and face the setback and look at it as something positive. That is not always easy.

With regards to assignments, you're much more tied to a specific idea --- not necessarily your own --- and there's neither the time nor the money for that idea to fully evolve, which is not always a bad thing. [cont...]