Harald Henden (57) has been photographing the war for 30 years: – Privacy suffers

FEATURED2018-10-26T19: 20: 15Z

Since the late 1920s, photographer VG has traveled to war-torn countries around the world. At home, it's not a family – and he's reconciled.

published:26.10.18 21:20

VG photographer Harald Henden documented the war through the lens of the camera for three decades. From the Gulf War where he visited a hospital filled with victims of torture and dead and wounded, interviews with terrorists in Afghanistan for a food disaster in southern Sudan and the war against the Islamic State.

Now he is sitting on the other side of the table – his life as a war photographer has become a book – "In war and loneliness".

This was not obvious. The author Svein Tore Bergestuen first rejected the idea of ​​the book when he came to Henden. But with what the hero describes as the "superstition" of Bergestu, he joined the group. And he is happy.

– My marital status – single, no child, no special family, this is not what I leave behind me. The work we do is very volatile. You are not basically better than the last job you have held. Being able to leave something that is a bit more durable than that, I am very grateful to have been given reason, he says.

In addition to taking part in Henden's war travels, the reader also understands who is hiding behind the camera. From the rise of Porsgrunn to romance with Sissel Kyrkjebø in the 1920s and the coincidences that led to his career ending in the last 30 years.

"I have things that Harald did not think I would have included in the book from the beginning, but we agreed that as long as it is appropriate, thoughtful and respectful, it is relevant to understand it," he said. said Bergestuen.

The hand nods and says that these are personal things that he would have preferred to leave out, but he ended up feeling comfortable sharing.

– Do you consider the relationship with Sissel Kyrkjebø?

"It's all about what I think," he says, and means nothing more than that.

Få has a long experience as a war photographer like Henden. How he approached the problem and why he continues, he has trouble reacting.

"I think I have a personality that suits him, an ability to compartmentalize him: when you're not in the situation, put him in a drawer in your brain until you need it," he says. -he.

He has never been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but he has had flashbacks in the field. At night he can wake up scared and lose cold.

One day in 2001, he himself really felt a war against his body. It is located on the western shore of Palestine. This is the second Intifada and, as usual, after the Friday prayer, there is a riot.

This Friday breaks the barricades together and several Palestinians, as well as photographers from Henden, are released. The hand rises on a shoulder of the road, the camera in front of the face. He will take pictures of a damaged Palestinian.

"I see in the corner of the eye that one of the jeeps stops and that a soldier jumps and looks in our direction," he recalls.

The rubber-coated steel ball is reminiscent of Henden. He turns around and loses consciousness. When he returns to himself a few seconds later, he is suspended between Palestinians who have come to help. He takes his mind and the hand that he places next in the field of vision is covered with blood.

"Nothing in everyday life hurts me, but the experience has been very scaly and will always be there, but I'd like to use something positive, that I can put myself in a situation and be even more cautious, he says.

On the camera later, it seems something incomprehensible. An image from below and from above, with two Palestinians leaning down. To the right of the image is the trigger hand.

"In a way, the camera goes off when the Palestinians come in. I do not know how it happened.

He is reconciled with the fact that he has not acquired a family and that he can live alone the rest of his life.

– Missed by holding his own daughter in his arms, he is still partially in place. But life in turn, it's a coincidence that I started in this business. I've tried to make the most of the situation every year. And maybe so gone that privacy is a problem.

There had never been conscious choice, at the same time, he would never have been able to live the life that he had had if there were women and children at home and who were waiting.

– Perhaps the most important thing – I could not defend anyone sitting at home, I was afraid of myself all the time, I was worried for myself and I was terrified.

But until June of this year, there was a person who always worried Henden when he was at work. His mother

– She was the only person who worried me and who loved me anyway. It becomes a feeling of emptiness when this man disappears.