There is an old saying in the business, “photography is not about cameras”, I believe the people who came up with that saying probably never worked with a Nikon F.

I grew up, and got interested in visual storytelling during the Vietnam war era. Dickey Chapelle, Eddie Adams, Catherine Leroy and many more are skilled photographers that worked with Nikon F as their primary tool during the war, but in my book nobody could match Larry Burrows. His Nikon F and 35 mm lens covered, and made history.

There is a famous story about when Mr. Burrows got permission to fastened his camera on the outside of a fighter plane in order to shoot during a mission. When other photographers asked for the same privilege, they were turned down. When they complained they were told by the authorities, “Mr. Burrows’ request was granted not because he is a photographer but because he is an artist. An artist with the right tool that is.

My first experience with a Nikon F was shooting news and sports for a newspaper. The camera was an old, beat up and retired Nikon F that had travelled many times around the world and left for dead in a cupboard at the paper. Working as freelance and with economic challenges (broke) I was allowed to take the camera out of it´s retirement and it has served me well since then. Just like Larry. 

- Paul Hansen

Paul Hansen is a photo journalist based in Stockholm, Sweden. As a staff photographer for the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter his assignments and self-initiated projects, take him all over the world – as well as just around the corner. Working with multimedia and also by writing his own reportages Paul takes on a big journalistic responsibility to great acclaim by his newspapers readership. In his cover stories, whether it is in Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan or back home in Sweden there is always one common denominator that link his work together; empathy.

His visual storytelling has, among many domestic and international prizes and honors, also awarded him “Picture of the year” two times and “Photographer of the Year” in Sweden nine times. He was also awarded “Photographer of the year Newspaper” in POYi 2010 and 2013, “World Press Photo, 2012”, a second place in “Photographer of the year” in POYi 2015 and a second place in “General News” by World Press Photo 2016. In addition, he has been nominated for the Swedish Pulitzer prize for his writing.