Hej då to Elska Stockholm
Later this week (probably Thursday), we’ll be releasing our next issue, so it’s time to say hej då to Elska Stockholm, our most recent release. Elska Stockholm was special — both because it was our first issue in our new bigger and sexier print format, and also because it’s a city I’ve personally loved since I first visited at age nineteen. I’ve also dated a Swede or two or three in my time, so I guess you can say I have an affinity for them.
Sweden is quite a chill place. Even in the busiest part of its busiest city, nothing feels too manic, and people always have time for a fika (like an afternoon coffee break). Even as I made this issue I took my share of coffee breaks, sometimes alone, sometimes with the guys I was there to meet and photograph. Overall it was probably the most relaxed issue to make out of our twenty-two issues so far. Even when things got hairy, like when we lost two guys in one day and had to go hunting for replacements, somehow stress was evaded.
The men too were very chill. Having learned from our previous issues in Reykjavík and Helsinki that Nordic men are a bit on the reserved side, I found Swedes relatively down for whatever. During shooting this was a definite plus, but once the issue came out they were rather too chill, like nonchalant and can't be bothered about it. Most we never heard from at all (do they even know the issue came out?), and one simply wrote to say, "the pics are not as bad as I thought". Cheers! And another wrote in to say that he was worried people in the community would talk, that they would call him a slut. Although at first he was proud to be seen in Elska, once he actually saw himself published the nerves hit him. He was clearly trying hard to not let it bother him, but knowing that he was hurting hurt me. And I also was frankly hurt that most of the guys never got in touch.
This relaxedness of Sweden always made me feel at home, because I'm also a very relaxed person, but in the process of making this issue I have learned more about the precise nature of Swedish calm. It's still hard to explain but it feels like Swedes are calm not because they don't care what others think. Rather they're calm because they don't want to be noticed, because they want to be under the radar and not stand out, because they do care and worry about what others think. This means that our issue is a triumph for being able to reveal this random little group of Stockholm men and for showing some vulnerability. Yet while I too personally like to stay under the radar, I quite prefer my Elska Magazine to be more of an attention whore.
Perhaps we invaded the privacy of a people who cherish being private, and I'm sorry for that, but I did it with the best of intentions. I love and have loved many Swedes in my life and I just wanted our readers to get to know them so they could fall in love with them too.
Liam Campbell is editor and chief photographer of Elska Magazine, a publication dedicated to letting readers get to know gay men in cities all over the world.
