Kimberly Hero finally finding her muse
Teenager Kimberly Hero with her dad’s camera about to film John Travolta and others
The teenager’s photograph of Travolta promoting Staying Alive
When I was still in school, with a bit of charm and hustle, I got to interview Paul McCartney, yes, Sir Paul himself, and RUSH and Heart. The following year, I interviewed Bruce Springsteen, and I was living my dream of being a writer.
My friend, Kimberly Hero, who I initially met while she was visiting Toronto, also had a dream when she was in school. In fact, as a 16-year-old who grew up outside of Uppsala, she did a two-week internship at Aftonbladet, a colorful, Swedish daily tabloid headquartered in Stockholm. She borrowed her father’s SLR camera, and she was happy to snap shots while going along with Aftonbladet’s pro journalists on assignment.
One of her interning jobs was taking photos of John Travolta who was visiting Sweden, doing promo for the Saturday Night Fever sequel, Staying Alive. Kim was only 16 at the time, and just a pretty young lady who was ga-ga over seeing superstar Travolta. The pro photographer whispered to Kim to grab Travolta’s arm and he’d quickly snap a photo of them — and so was created one of those unforgettable moments.
Superstar Travolta in Sweden with the aspiring photographer
Kim got to take individual photos of Travolta, who was surprisingly accommodating. During her two-week internship, she also took photos of Swedish King Carl Gustav and a young Princess Victoria, and other celebrities like Davis Cup tennis stars. And not only were her photos used by several newspapers, she even made some money which she remembers as being “quite flattering.”
At the time, Kim felt a passion for photography but her father, like most parents, thought she should have a more solid career and an education. So she never did pursue her artistic passion, instead becoming a mother of two boys and getting involved in real estate until she met someone who later inspired that creative spirit in her again. She explains:
After going against myself long enough, I met my own ‘Mr. Miyagi,’ a former advertising photographer from New York, who also had been teaching at New York’s Pratt Institute school of design. My own ‘Mr. M.’ had been one of my customers in my earlier line of work. He’d viewed my photos and had a very strong belief in me and saw me broken down. He gave me a small camera as a present — a Sony RX10 which had amazing sharpness and a great Carl Zeiss lens. But the gift came with some strings attached — I had to send him new pictures regularly and he also gave me assignments! That´s why I call him my Mr. Miyagi because like Daniel, Ralph Macchio’s character in The Karate Kid, a lot of the assignments seemed really pointless at first. But when looking back, they were all ‘baby steps’ to point me in the right direction. From then on I couldn’t be stopped. I studied photography at Bilder Nordic in Oslo and then I worked at Bsmart, a large studio for advertising photography in Stockholm. All to get the knowledge and tools to work the way I wanted.
Now, Kimberly Hero has finally followed her muse, moving back to Sweden and setting up shop in Stockholm — focusing on doing personal and corporate portraits, along with personal events like weddings and also advertising work. She often uses her delightful, seven-year-old daughter Leonie to practice her lighting for a shoot.
The photographer with daughter Leonie, who she uses to test lighting
Bergman’s The Seventh Seal ranks as one of top black/white movies ever
When looking through her work, you can see she has a director’s style. She admits being inspired by classic Swedish black and white movies like Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and Prison, and by Alf Sjoberg’s Torment — all visually arresting, B/W stories. Then there were those classic Swedish actors like Max von Sydow, Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman who did their best work in black and white.
Photographer Hero’s stunning black/white portraits
Another stunning black/white portrait by photographer Hero
Kim talks of being moved by these filmed images:
My inspiration comes, among other things, from old black/white movies. I love the dramatic lighting and the classic beauty in portraits from that era. Now, I love to put a person in front of my camera and direct them into a certain mood that I’ve determined beforehand. So, in a way it’s a bit like being a director. Different photographers work in different ways and I know that many don´t say that much and let the person in front of the camera do their thing and see what happens. But I sense that a lot of clients/models find it easier to relax when they feel that the person behind the camera has a plan and directs them. When I was younger I did work as a model and I found it very stressful, personally, not knowing if I was doing it right or not. That in itself can make people look uneasy and unsure.
Hero also rocks color portrait photos
Kim, who now uses a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and also loves working in color, is now based out of both Norway and Sweden. And, having traveled around the world, she’s open to traveling for projects. One passionate project she’s working on is a multi-platform exhibition for a wonderful neuroscience foundation, Hjärnfonden:
Their goal is to find new, effective treatments and to intensify critical neuroscience research. My exhibition idea will focus on portraits of famous and interesting Swedish personalities, showing emotions that can come with different afflictions of the brain — anxiety, schizophrenia, Alzheimer´s, depression, bipolar disease. I want to challenge my subjects out of their comfort zone and to show themselves in a way that we might not have seen them before. Not glamorous necessarily but touching and real. I also have a personal stake as different diseases of the brain have affected both close family and friends as well as myself. So I want to do what I do best, to help with that work, and all profits will go to neuroscience research.
For her upcoming exhibit, Hero captures actor Eivind Brenne portraying a man with neurological disorder
Drop in on Kimberly Hero on Facebook and on her website, and check out Hjärnfonden.