Project SAR Europe

Around Europe there are different teams of professionals and volunteers doing search and rescue in different conditions and environments, in mountains, urban areas, at sea, in caves or other hard to reach hostile environments. Every team has their unique way of doing things, their own set of skills, their own specific tasks. Likewise, all of them have a common goal, to save lives and rescue those stranded or injured and bring them out safe. After having worked for almost 30 years in and around search and rescue, both as a volunteer and professional, I have experienced first hand the importance of this common thread and the learning opertunities in networking across teams, countries and continents. When I turned the page and moved over to professional photography I realized that photography could be one way to connect and communicate between different teams and cultures in SAR. So I started the SAR Europe Project.  

You have to start somewhere

I belive in the constant evolvement of projects and that for a project to ever take off you have to start somewhere. So my original plan was simply to get going and start shooting teams around Europe at my own cost, as a personal project. The goal was to visit at least 10-15 different teams and the end product was to be a travelling outdoor photo exhibition available for the teams to display in their own hometown, base or other location. And even though that is still the plan it keeps evolving as I travel, shoot more and meet more people along the way.  As time goes by and images start piling up it may become something more than a personal project, perhaps through crowd funding, sponsorship, collaboration or other opertunities. Or maybe it will stay a simple personal project aimed at putting a face on search and rescue in Europe with my images. Showing that face to the public and the SAR communitee via an exhibition, on-line and/or on-location, in a book, on social media etc. All depending on how the project grows and evolves.

My First project - 112 Responders

The idea for SAR Europe is an offspring from an earlier project I did, called 112 - Responders where I photographed responders from all the different agencies and organizations behind the 112 dispatch center in Iceland. That project also started as a personal project and evolved into a book and two different exhibitions. One in the joint rescue co-ordination centre in Reykjavík, the second, an outdoor exhibition outside the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik city Center and the third exhibition in front of the cultural- and conference centre Hof in Akureyri. That project was half way through financed by the Icelandic 112 dispatch center as a part of the celebration of their 20th anniversary in 2016.

My second project - Shooting Rescue

In 2020 I realised, that by then, I had spent 30 of my 46 years in and around search and rescue in Iceland and the last 10 of them, photographing it. So as a way to landmark that, I published my favourite images from that time along with the stories behind the images, in a 160 page self-published book, released just before Christmas 2020 and available in my online store www.sosfotoshop.com.

Pieces of the project...