Ragnhild Haarstad

Ragnhild Haarstad was born in 1935 in Röros, a small mountain town 16 kilometres south of Trondheim in Norway. Her grandfather owned a publishing house and a local newspaper. And her grandmother was a graphic artist. Her interest in photography was sparked early on, and when the family moved to Sweden, Ragnhild and her father joined a photography club. She started taking pictures with her mother's box camera, focusing on people's everyday lives. After studying with Swedish court photographer Edvard Welinder, she entered the profession. It was Welinder's idea that she should attend an evening course on 'subjective photography', led by Christer Strömholm and Tor-Ivan Odulf. This was crucial for Ragnhild's career choice and her view of photography as a visual language. Ragnhild Haarstad became one of Sweden's first woman press photographers and has photographed everything from everyday events to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and such celebrities as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Olof Palme and Zarah Leander. However, as a female pioneer in the profession, she has had to fight against the odds. In 1971, she was named Photographer of the Year, and it would be 50 years before a woman received that honour again.