Behind the Lens of Indochina

I first met JP in the early 2000s, when Saigon was still shaking off its sleep and the roads to the Mekong were more mud than asphalt. He arrived as a young, enthusiastic tour leader—fresh from a life-changing detour in Istanbul where a chance encounter with a fellow traveler had turned him from a restless Norwegian into a Citizen of the World.

That story still makes me smile. A hangover, a bar in Istanbul, and suddenly he was driving an overland truck from Cairo to Cape Town. Then the Middle East. Then, in 2002, Vietnam.

I remember his first days with Imaginative. He moved through the chaos of Saigon’s streets with a wide-eyed wonder that never quite faded—only deepened. He learned the backroads. He learned the language of smiles. He learned that the best journeys are not measured in kilometers but in moments of connection.

It was during those early years that he added a camera to his kit. Digital photography, he says, made it easier. But I think the camera was always waiting to find him. He just needed the right landscapes—and the right faces—to give it purpose.

What sets JP apart from every other photographer I have known is this: he returns.

He leads the same tours, year after year. Which means he visits the same villages. The same families. The same children who once hid behind their mothers’ skirts now run to meet him, calling his name.

“When we took photos, everyone—but especially the children—always loved to see themselves on the screen,” he told me once. “Since I do the same tours over and over, I started printing my photos so I could give them back the next time I came.”

This is the heart of JP’s work. He does not take images from people. He creates something with them, and then he returns to deliver it. A photograph of a grandmother placed into her hands. A child’s face, printed and framed, hanging on a bamboo wall.

“It is great to see the kids when they get their photo,” he says. “Or their parents. Or their grandparents.”

I have stood beside him in those moments. I have watched eyes light up across language barriers. I have understood, then, why he keeps going.

When I asked him once what he hopes to express through his photographs, his answer was simple—so simple it took me a moment to appreciate its depth.

“First of all I love to see the smile and laughter in people’s faces. Children and adults. Fantastic here in Southeast Asia, but special in Cambodia. I want to pass on to my friends and followers how fantastic this part of the world is. The beautiful parts, but also the darker sides.”

His portraits capture both. The radiance of a child at play. The quiet dignity of an elder whose eyes hold stories no words can tell. The laughter—always the laughter—but also the weight of history carried with grace.

He does not romanticize poverty. He does not exploit suffering. He simply witnesses. And in witnessing, he honors.

Over the years, I have seen JP share his craft with anyone who asks. His three rules for people-photography are simple, and they speak to the kind of man he is:

Learn a few words in the language. Be happy. Be polite. Show respect.
Be ready to put away your camera the moment someone does not wish to be photographed.
Spend time. Share the pictures. Do not be afraid to interact, even when you do not share a language. “A smile and laughter go a long way,” he says.

He learned much of this from Etienne Bossot at the Hoi An Photo Tour & Workshop, where he honed his skills in portraiture and approach. But the foundation was already there—in his nature, in his Norwegian decency, in his genuine love for the people he encounters.

Of all the lands he has wandered, Cambodia holds a special place in JP’s soul. He speaks of the people with a tenderness I rarely hear in his voice for anywhere else. Their smiles. Their eyes. Their extraordinary resilience in the face of a past that should have broken them.

He does not merely admire them from behind his lens. He supports them—quietly, consistently, without fanfare.

Through New Hope Cambodia, he sponsors a family of eleven, ensuring the children can stay in school. In Phnom Penh, he brings his groups to Friends Restaurant, and with each visit he buys a “brick”—a $50 donation that helps disadvantaged children. He has an album on Facebook filled with photographs of those bricks. Nearly thirty of them now.

At Jayavaraman the 7th Hospital in Siem Reap, he has donated blood nearly twenty times. He brings volunteers from his tours to do the same.

This is JP. Not the grand gesture, but the steady, faithful return. The gift given, again and again.

When someone asked him once what his biggest dream was, JP paused—not because he had to search for an answer, but because the answer was already so fully realized.

“This is my dream,” he said. “In 1998 I left my job, my home, Norway, to do what I had been dreaming about for a long time: to travel around the world. And I have lived that dream ever since. I love my job, my hobby, my life.”

I have known few people who can say that with such unforced truth. JP is one of them.

In 2016, he launched a project in Siem Reap: six Canon cameras to train twelve teenagers from a poor community, in collaboration with New Hope Cambodia. He organized an exhibition at his gallery, Asian Hideaways, back in Norway, and channeled the proceeds back to his young students.

He is still out there. Still leading. Still photographing. Still returning to villages where children run to meet him.