Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir
Written By: Logi Thor Baldursson | Nov, 2022
Photo: Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir
It’s a another day here in Borås Sweden, the autumn gloom has lingered for the past two months. Clouds have barricaded any sunlight in the upper atmosphere, only allowing rays of gray to pass.
Rebekka is notably late, I wonder what the hold up is. I double check to see if I have sent the invite link to the video meeting, In all fairness I did, although it was to myself.
After our minor hick-up and greetings have been exchanged I query how she ended up traveling the path of life as a photographer and how she got introduced to the camera.
“The happenstance of it all was with my fathers camera photographing myself, series of self observation at a fragile time in my life in my early twenties.”
– So a selfie before the selfie?
“Yeah kind of, except it I did it for introspection.”
As we go on she shares the love she had for Black & White films in the dark room and how she obtained her brand new Canon IXUS; a big smile lights up her face as she mentions her old camera.
It’s still raining here in Sweden, but suddenly it isn’t as gloomy anymore.
That camera was the instrument in her rise to fame, she joined this new website called Flickr which had just launched and within six months she went from being unknown to the most popular person on the site.
“I was one of the O.G’s”.
“As I studied at Reykjavík University of Art, I experimented a lot and uploaded everything online, opening up and talking about my life. I was super weird, but very sincere.”
–You must have gotten a large variety of different types of messages?
“Yes, through sharing your life online people become attached, you become an old ‘friend’ of theirs, I had a lot of different types of messages and interactions. It was amazing to hear from young women especially, having influenced their life in a positive way. That’s what mattered. But then you also have another type of messages from middle aged men…”