Johan Ödmann

Johan Ödmann documented the swedish garage rock scene in the middle of the 80's. He built up an unique collection of b/w music photography with more than 28.000 negatives focusing on the music scene in Stockholm between 1980-1987 at legendary rock clubs like Underground, Ritz, Mariahissen, Roxy and Studion.
Most of the material has never been seen or published before. It has been stored away since the 80´s and is seen at Stockholm Rock Action for the first time. At this moment only a small bit of this collection has been uploaded.
More photographs will be added every week.
For the last six years, Johan Ödmann has been shooting fashion for international magazines such as Self Service, Big Magazine, Dazed & Confused, Spoon, Jalouse, Exit and Bon.
His fashion work has been exhibited at Millenium of Mode 3rd International Fashion Festival at Kobe Fashion Museum, Tokyo and Nagoya in 2000-2001. In 2002 his photography was exhibited in Fashion Photography Now at Span Galleries, Melbourne, curated by Patrick Remy.
Check out Johan Ödmann´s fashion photography at www.johanodmann.com
To see more of his music photography, go to www.stockholmrockaction.com
Kid Congo Powers;
The Gun Club At Ritz
Oct 06, 1984
Neg. No: 399-57
Photo ©Johan Ödmann
Jeffrey Lee Pierce;
The Gun Club At Ritz
Oct 06, 1984
Neg. No: 398-56a
Photo ©Johan Ödmann
Tony Carlson;
The Nomads At Ritz
Feb 15, 1985
Neg. No: 474-28
Photo ©Johan Ödmann
Billy Zoom;
X At Glädjehuset
Mar 18, 1984
Neg. No: 255-12a
Photo ©Johan Ödmann
Jeffrey Lee Pierce;
Jeffrey Lee Pierce Quartet At Moderna Museets Trädgård
Jun 19, 1985
Neg. No: 537-23a
Photo ©Johan Ödmann
Johnny Thunders;
Johnny Thunders At Underground
Mar 26, 1982
Neg. No: 122-5a
Photo ©Johan Ödmann
Keith Streng;
The Fleshtones At Ritz
Nov 19, 1983
Neg. No: 213-3a
Photo ©Johan Ödmann
"YOU CAN´T PUT YOUR ARMS AROUND A MEMORY"
Words by Mark Isitt.
Johan Ödmann owes it all to God. At age 16 he was confirmed and given a Canon AT-1 for doing so. That was the deal agreed with Mom and Dad – if he could stick the Bible bashing he would be richly rewarded. His parents were probably hoping that a camera would force him out into the fresh air and away from the tinnitus-inducing riffing of his electric guitar. But the result was just the opposite. That camera marked the start of their son’s rapid descent to a suffocating bottomless darkness.
Literally.
It all began with his building his first attic darkroom at home (a scant 1.5 square metres serves fine if you’re tall and narrow). After which he went off to concerts. A job as a photo assistant kept him economically afloat, but what he lived for were the nights he spent facing the stage and the thrill it gave him tracking his idols through the camera viewfinder.
He snapped everything and everyone.
All the time.
“The status for rock music photography was mud at that time,” says Johan today. “There was hardly anywhere you could publish your pictures. In the US and England it was different of course, there was more of a documentary spirit there."
After punk the music scene in Sweden exploded with a host of new bands. The task that Johan took upon himself was to document what he saw, primarily because no other photographer had cottoned on to the importance of what was just about to happen. The Nomads, The Stomac Mouths, Lustans Lakejer, the early Imperiet, along with all the international artists who came to Stockholm in the belief that the real world would never find out what they were up to there. There was plenty to feast on.
“It was a matter of capturing a moment in time. It was almost a vocation for me; if I didn’t document what was happening then no one – other than us who had been there – would understand. The experience needed to be recorded.” Or, to quote his favourite, Johnny Thunders, “You can’t put your arms around a memory”.
What impresses when studying Johan’s collected production from the years 1980–87 is its overall consistency. One element in this is thanks to the technical: he consistently relied on the same camera (the successors to the AT-1, the Canon F-1), he never used wide angle, he always preferred black and white to colour, and he developed his films in a solution which intensified the already prevailing black tones.
Another quality of course is the purely aesthetic. His work is dominated by a strong feeling for the documentary. Just as important as recording the artists themselves was his concern to capture details typical of the time. Paul Simonon’s pilot overall and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Afghan boots tell us much about contemporary fashion. And the disintegrating acoustic roofing and the patched up extra speakers show that rock music then was still far more underground than big business (something soon to alter). And – if your inclinations are towards the nerdic – who did Thunders borrow that never-before-seen black Gretsch Country Gentleman guitar from?
It is precisely this unembellished approach to his work, the impression that all the editing took place in that 250th of a second when the photographer pressed the shutter, this is what heightens the sense of presence. Johan lived literally for the moment. He displayed no desire to add or detract but respected totally what happened then and there.
It’s only rock and roll, hey?
Johan Ödmann was born in Stockholm in 1962. His fashion stories have been published in such magazines as Self Service, Big Magazine, Bon, Dazed & Confused, Exit, Jalouse and Spoon.
Mark Isitt is editor-in-chief for the architecture and design magazine Forum AID.