Jonas Bendiksen (born 1977) is a Norwegian photojournalist based near Oslo. He has published the books ''Satellites'' (2006) and ''The Places We Live'' (2008) and received awards from

World Press Photo World Press Photo Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 1955, the organization is known for holding an annual press photography contest. Since 2011, World Press Photo has organized a ...

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...

National Magazine Awards The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

and

Pictures of the Year International Pictures of the Year International (POYi) is a professional development program for visual journalists run on a non-profit basis by the Missouri School of Journalism's Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. POYi began as an annual competition f ...

. Bendiksen is a member of

Magnum Photos Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices in New York City, Paris, London and Tokyo. It was founded in 1947 in Paris by photographers Robert Capa, David Seymour (photographer), Davi ...

and has served as its president.

Life and work

Bendiksen was born in

Tønsberg Tønsberg , historically Tunsberg, is a city and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, eastern Norway, located around south-southwest of Oslo on the western coast of the Oslofjord near its mouth onto the Skagerrak. The administrative ce ...

, in

Vestfold Vestfold is a traditional region, a former county and a current electoral district in Eastern Norway. In 2020 the county became part of the much larger county of Vestfold og Telemark. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it bordered th ...

county, southern

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

in 1977. He lived in Russia for several years. The time he spent there resulted in his book, ''Satellites - Photographs from the Fringes of the former Soviet Union'', about separatist republics in the

former USSR The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

, published in 2006. For three years he photographed slum communities in Nairobi in Kenya, Mumbai in India, Jakarta in Indonesia, and Caracas in Venezuela, for ''The Places We Live'', a book published in 2008, and an exhibition containing projections and voice recordings. Bendiksen became a

nominee in 2004 and a member in 2008. In 2010 he was its president. ''The Last Testament'' (2017) follows seven men around the world who claim to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. In 2021, in ''The Book of Veles'', Bendiksen departed from the photojournalism practice by creating a conceptual work about "fake news" which consisted of images that were "faked" using CGI to place humans and bears in scenes that Bendiksen had photographed devoid of life, mixed with excerpts from The Book of Veles (a forged ancient text), and AI-generated texts. The deception, initially not disclosed, escaped detection from his colleagues at Magnum and then curators and audiences at the Visa Pour l'Image festival, until Bendiksen revealed it on the Magnum Photos website. It questioned the ability of the most visually literate people in the photography industry to tell real photos from faked ones

Personal life

, Bendiksen lives with his wife and three children near Oslo.

Bibliography

Books

* *''The Places We Live.'' New York: Aperture, 2008. . *''The Last Testament.'' New York: Aperture, 2017. . *''The Book of Veles.'' London: Gost Books, 2021. . ;Anthologies *''A Year in Photography: Magnum Archive.'' Munich:

Prestel Prestel (abbrev. from press telephone), the brand name for the UK Post Office Telecommunications's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979. It achieved a maximu ...

; New York, Paris, London, Tokyo: Magnum, 2010. . *''Magnum Contact Sheets.'' Edited by Kristen Lubben. London:

Thames & Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

, 2011. *''Magnum Contact Sheets.'' Edited by Kristen Lubben. London: Thames & Hudson, 2014. . Compact edition.

Articles

Exhibitions

* 2007: ''Welcome to Nowhere'', Stills Gallery, Sydney. Part of ''New Blood'', Magnum Photos 60th anniversary exhibition. With

Trent Parke Trent Parke (born 1971) is an Australian photographer. He is the husband of Narelle Autio, with whom he often collaborates. He has created a number of photography books; won numerous national and international awards including four World Press P ...

Antoine D'Agata Antoine d'Agata (; born 1961) is a French photographer and film director. His work deals with topics that are often considered taboo, such as addiction, sex, personal obsessions, darkness, and prostitution. D'Agata is a full member of Magnum Photo ...

Mark Power Mark Power (born 1959) is a British photographer. He is a member of Magnum Photos and Professor of Photography in The Faculty of Arts and Architecture at the University of Brighton.Alec Soth Alec Soth (born 1969) is an American photographer, based in Minneapolis. Soth makes "large-scale American projects" featuring the midwestern United States. ''New York Times'' art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a "photographic care ...

Film appearances

*''Space Tourists'' (2009). Directed by

Christian Frei Christian Frei (born 1959 in Schönenwerd, Solothurn) is a Swiss filmmaker and film producer. He is mostly known for his films ''War Photographer'' (2001), '' The Giant Buddhas'' (2005) and ''Space Tourists'' (2009). Frei has been an associate lec ...

. Feature-length documentary. *''Water: Our Thirsty World'' (2010). Directed by Steven Kochones. 21 minute short.

Awards

*2003: Infinity Award, Young Photographer category,

, New York. *2004: Second prize, Daily Life Stories category, World Press Photo Awards,

, Amsterdam. *2007: ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'' won the Photojournalism category,

, for Bendiksen's documentary of life in a Nairobi slum, ''Kibera''. *2008:

Telenor Culture Award Telenor Culture Prize, titled 'Boundless Communication', is given annually to performing artists or organizations that have made an extraordinary contribution within culture in Scandinavia, but who also are established internationally. The prize w ...

, from

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, ...

, Bærum, Norway. *2013: Award of Excellence, Feature Story Editing - Magazine category, Seventieth Pictures of the Year International Competition,

with Elizabeth Krist and Elaine Bradley, for "Russian Summer" in ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

''. *2014: First place, Sports Story Editing category, Pictures of the Year International, with Elizabeth Krist and Elaine Bradley, for "On the Trail with the First Skiers" in ''National Geographic''. *2014: Award of Excellence, Sports Picture Story category, Pictures of the Year International, for "The Last of the First Skiers".

References

External links

*
Bendiksen's profile at Magnum Photos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bendiksen, Jonas 1977 births Living people Magnum photographers National Geographic people Photographers from Oslo Norwegian photojournalists People from Tønsberg