Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jannica Honey. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jannica, appreciate you joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Most of us, creatives find “risks” the most challenging aspect of being self-employed. Perhaps “taking a risk” is the hardest part of life, yet totally central to “being alive”.

Perhaps it is only me and my luggage of trauma that makes me apprehensive and anxious each time I leave my comfort zone (what is that anyway?).
Yet THIS is the only way creatives stay imaginative. We simply have to allow for that “flow” or creative river to move along our inner landscape. If that river of creation doesn’t swell we never know what the destination or the result will birth. It is like a forever process into the unknown… waters of creativity. Flowing rather than stagnant.

I googled risk, seems like something we all shy away from.

Definition for risk. noun as in chance taken. Synonyms Antonyms. Strongest matches. danger, exposure, hazard, liability, opportunity, peril, possibility, prospect, uncertainty.

The last two words are central in an artist’s way.
Uncertainty is the key and feeds not only possibilities but also prospect. Something fabulous might unfold.

I never had a plan B. My photography was all I had and is still what I have left. It wasn’t a choice and I am not even sure if I trust this place of chance and anticipation but if you take that risk, you might just create the most significant creation of your life. A walk, right into the unknows. A place where we all exist.

Jannica, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Swedish-born Jannica Honey moved to Edinburgh to study photography and digital imaging after completing a BA in Humanities (anthropology & criminology) at Stockholm University 1998.

After building extensive editorial experience as The List Magazine’s in-house photographer, where she shot more than 20 covers and covered the full-spectrum of arts, travel, food and events, she began focusing on more challenging subjects in a series of photo essays. In 2011 Honey spent several months photographing lap dancers in Edinburgh for an exhibition premiered at the city’s Festival Fringe, providing a candid and unusual perspective.

The following winter she visited the Mohawk reservation in Kahnawake (Montreal) portraying residents including chiefs, peace officer and drug dealers. Later that year she returned to her native Stockholm to document the life of a group of ageing amphetamine addicts, a community her recently deceased aunt had belonged to.

In the summer of 2013 Honey was given unprecedented access to photograph the Orange Order’s controversial parade through Glasgow, capturing both the marchers and by-standers.

A significant proportion of her recent work has focused on musicians (subjects include The Killers, Emma Pollock, Frightened Rabbit, The Horrors and Young Fathers) with her photographs appearing in The Guardian, LA Times, Aftenposten, Svenska Dagbladet, The Scotsman, the Sunday Herald, Vogue, Dazed & Confused, Tank, Aesthetica Magazine ( http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/stylised-realism-coaxing-emotion/ ) and Swedish Gaffa.

Honey’s latest project is her most ambitious to date and sees her working within the constraints of the brief interludes of twilight and only shooting on the new and full moon over 12 months.

’When The Blackbird Sings’ portrays the multiple aspects of the female cycle through photographs of women and nature (Sweden/Scotland).

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Here is a secret, you will never know who you will meet and when you encounter this person. You will just need to be as authentic as you can, good-spirited and honest. We cannot really fake connections, well, maybe you can but that would result in a whole life where you fake your existence and your creation doesn’t align with who you are, the divine nature that dwells deep within you.

Art and creation emerge from a genuine place within us. This space is also the resting place for great hardship as well as joy and lust.

To keep this well of wellness, shall I say well. You need to forever flush through your system with truth. To forever think, do I trust this person, will we create amazing work together,  when you meet people on your path? When your instinct gives you the green light then, go for it.
Never enter companies with a person you do not want to spend time with, this will damage your whole business.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My biggest project, When The Blackbird Sings is about twilights, moons, woods and naked humans. How we are nature and nature is us. I take people on a walk into the inner woods where true magic dwells.

My account is shadowbanned by Instagram which means that I do not appear and in some kind of way, that has given me zero visibility on social media but a lot of recognition through word of mouth. People are becoming aware of how limited our “visual diet” is online. How we are starved of both diversity and representation.
How some bodies do not exist and some ages are pushed into the shadows, where no light reaches these accounts.
Like I always say, photography business or whatever you create, just do what you do best and fxxk the rest.  Do not mend your beautiful creation according to community guidelines or general norms that form our society. You are a direct link to the divine, just show them what you are here to do, create.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jannicahoney.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whentheblackbirdsings_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JannicaHoneyPhotography
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannica-honey-53039b11/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jannicahoney

Image Credits

Credit; to the nature that held us. To that togetherness that unfolded between us. To the mist in the morning, the sunset at night and especially to the twilight where the blackbird sings. Thanks