About me
Frank Otto Pedersen
If you'd met me ten years ago, there's a good chance you would have found me standing beneath a clear night sky, waiting for the Milky Way to appear.
These days, you're far more likely to find me standing alone in thick fog.
Somewhere along the way, my photography changed. I became less interested in chasing spectacular moments and more interested in discovering the quiet ones. I realised that the photographs I kept returning to weren't necessarily the most dramatic. They were the ones that invited me to slow down, pay attention and notice something that wasn't immediately obvious.
That shift has shaped everything I do today.
I still love exploring remarkable places, whether it's the mountains of the Dolomites, the cliffs on Madeira or the coastline of my home in Southern Norway. But the location has become less important than the experience of being there. What keeps drawing me back isn't the search for iconic viewpoints. It's the possibility that changing weather, soft light or a veil of mist might transform an ordinary scene into something quietly memorable.
I've often wondered why I'm so drawn to those moments.
I grew up in a small island community on the southern coast of Norway, where the sea was never far away and life moved at a different pace. Looking back, I think those surroundings taught me to appreciate stillness long before I ever owned a camera. Nature became a place where I could think, reflect and simply be present.
Living with Tourette syndrome has probably shaped my photography more than I realised for many years. Tourette can make life feel noisy, restless and unpredictable. Photography has always offered me something different. When I'm behind the camera, my attention settles. The constant noise fades into the background, and the world becomes a little quieter. Out in nature, waiting for the light to change or the fog to reveal the landscape, I find a sense of calm that's difficult to describe but easy to recognise.
That feeling is one of the reasons I love sharing photography with others.
Alongside photography, I work as a secondary school teacher, and teaching has influenced the way I lead workshops and photography tours. I enjoy helping people understand not just how to create stronger photographs, but why they are drawn to certain landscapes or compositions in the first place.
My goal has never been to help people recreate my images. In fact, I hope they don't.
The most rewarding moments as a guide are when someone stops trying to make the photograph they think they're supposed to take and instead discovers something personal. Sometimes that's found in a grand landscape. More often, it's found in the small details that everyone else walks past.
Photography has taught me that seeing is a skill we never really finish learning.
The longer I've carried a camera, the more I've realised that meaningful photographs rarely come from moving faster, travelling further or chasing the next famous location. They come from slowing down. From being curious. From staying a little longer when everyone else has packed away their tripod.
That's the approach I try to bring to my own photography, to every workshop and every tour I lead.
Whether you're here to explore the galleries, collect a fine art print or join me on a photography tour, I hope my work encourages you to look a little closer, stay a little longer and discover the quiet beauty that so often goes unnoticed.
