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◄berserker's photostream
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Berserker
The meaning of a fight to the death.
Canadian, poet / photographer
Started at 19, now I'm 24
If you want to buy prints, all the information is here.
I'm native to the Annapolis Valley. The same hills and streams and forests that sheltered my childhood from chirping chick to soaring gull still hold my nest in their branches. I've spent more of my life alone in the wilderness than in the company of friends.
As a child, first reading of the Underground Railroad, I thought it was a physical construct, a literal thing beneath the earth. Sometimes, on particularly dark winter days, I find myself watching the ground for signs of shaking, hints of something going on beneath the surface. I wish I had children so I could tell them beautiful lies about gnomes and dwarves, their grand and wonderful cities that thrive in caverns and warmer places near the center of the earth. I was born in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia. We have no mythology here. No tales of monsters or dragon-slaying heroes. All we have are would-be jesters and more than our fair share of damsels in distress. But the damsels are teenage mothers and the jesters are stand-up comedians. We overslept and missed the introduction of magic to the western world.
Someone who lived a very long time ago once wrote about the cyclops - a large, lumbering creature with a single eye central to his forehead. This wasn't seen as a particularly beneficial development, as it prevented such useful abilities as depth perception. In this sense, a photographer gives up something of his own sight to capture what others can't. I don't remember the last time I looked at something beautiful without composing a photograph in my mind. The image is like the frozen frame of a movie, melting in the hot light of a broken projector. Photography is a distraction from reality, the capturing of truth, lightning in a bottle, a splinter of the mind's eye. What we see is so fleeting, rushing by us like the view from the highway, the everyday adventure passing us by. But if we just stop, we could make the moments come to life.
Memories we've forgotten, passionately frozen in time.
my new eyes
Canon 5d Mark II
Canon EF 50mm f1.4
my old eyes
Canon Rebel XSi
Canon Rebel XTi
Canon EF-S 17-85mm
◄berserker's favorite photos from other Flickr members (1,578)
Contacts (170)
Testimonials (7)
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kelsey hannah says:
"his photos have a slow silence to them, a deep honesty, a strong truth, they are life and death and nature and humanity
one of the most powerful photographers i've encountered on flickr.
thanks for letting us see into your soul a little bit"29th January, 2011
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artisticonfusion says:
"you know there's something special about a person's photostream when it can make you tear up.
there's a story here within these photos and poems. it's heavy and it means a lot, although sometimes the meaning is unclear, but that does not take away from the heaviness. no, not at all.
just listen.
it's special.
all of the the delicate things we ponder over that somehow magically string us together at times - i can hear them here, and it's very, very special."23rd October, 2010
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pear s o n says:
"Truly inspirational, beautiful, and meaningful photography. I feel as if Steve's photos all have this thing about them. I don't know what it is, but it's very magical. It makes the dirtiest things in the world the most pure, fantastic things. He owns one of the very best photostreams on this website."
17th September, 2010
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undergroundmess says:
"For me, it's that moment when I'm in class and I suddenly stop listening or writing. It's that moment when I'm drinking a cup of coffee and the entire world falls silent. It's when I have a bad day and I walk to the lake just to see and listen to everything live. It's in these moments that I realize that I exist. This is it. It's being at peace with your surroundings. Berserker's work reminds me to appreciate my existence. To appreciate my freedom of thought. To appreciate my hands and the puddles of water that reflect my toes and my eyes. That reflect everything through their existence. His stream is like watching your breath in the cold and feeling your sweat in the sun. His work brings back the most beautiful memories and makes me want to question everything that I've been predisposed to believe. He captures the complexity in the things that I take for granted. Berserker is one of my biggest inspirations and one of the photographers that I admire most on flickr.
His work is real in ways that this language could never describe."4th March, 2010
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viviandang says:
"I was blown away when I discovered your photostream.
I honestly had to fight the urge to favorite every single picture.
Your work is amazing; so simplistic yet incredibly brilliant."2nd September, 2009
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anidjai says:
"From a stranger to a friend in minutes. He will open up through words, through pictures in a way most are too hesitant to do. His brain is set straight, in a not-straight-at-all way. Learn him."
3rd August, 2009
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Meredith Amadee says:
"i've never been to nova scotia, but after looking through steve's stream pretty much every day, i can honestly say I would recognize his charming town if I were to ever visit. he brings life to lifeless objects through his photography. he finds beauty in the awkward and unnoticed. and he's made me notice. you are a rare kind, my friend, and I ask that you don't change, and please, please never stop what you are doing."
20th June, 2009
- Name:
- steve skafte
- Joined:
- February 2007
- Hometown:
- Bridgetown, Nova Scotia
- Currently:
- Canada
- I am:
- Male and Taken
- Occupation:
- Photographer
- Email:
- berserkerpoetry [at] hotmail.com