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During a hectic day and night in August the streets of Stockholm were busy with enthusiast photographers competing in the annual photo marathon. During 24 hours the challenge is to create 24 photos with 24 specific themes. Every four hour four new themes are given and in the end a memory card with the photos in the right order is handed in. Any editing is strictly forbidden.

This years themes were: My participation number, Art, Icon, Laughter, Portrait, Sour, Development, Date, Architecture, Cash is king, Sneak peak, Rebel, Explore, Love, Wet, Light, Afraid of he dark, Imagination, Rust, Hero, Conceitedness, World class, Square and Norra Bantorget.

The photo marathon is an exhausting yet fantastic experience. The main joy is to interact with all the people around town to solve a theme. I like to present a "street style" series without too much staging and this year my ambition was to try to tell a story about the city and the Stockholmers.

During the 24 hours I criss-crossed town on a bike - altogether more than 60 kms, made 586 exposures out of which 562 were discarded and made lots of great encounters with friendly people. To all of them I have exchanged the photos they helped me to take.

The photo below, on theme laughter, shows photo retailer Gert Johansson in his shop on Hornsgatan. For the final selection I did chose another subject though.

Edit: See my entry here. By the jury my series was rewarded a top ten position.