In 1987, at the age of 16, Joachim's dream of becoming a soccer player was shattered when he was almost crippled by rheumatism. A year later he got his first camera, with the hope that photography could bring him closer to the activities his illness prevented him from. Three years later he joined a small regional newspaper in Denmark, shooting up to six assignments a day. From 1995-1998 he was a staff photographer at the national newspaper, Politiken.
He has worked in more than 50 countries for magazines such as The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Mare, TIME and Newsweek.
He has won international recognition for covering war, conflict and ordinary life. Visa d'Or, World Press Photo, Life Magazine, AGFA and Denmark's Picture of the Year competition, are among the organizations that have seen fit to award Joachim for his work. He has been named one of Photo District News Magazine's '30 under 30,' and has participated in the Joop Swart Master Class at World Press Photo.
In 2000 he published his first book, Albanians, about the turbulent life of the Albanians between 1997-1999, from the pyramid scheme collapse to the war, exodus and subsequent homecoming to Kosovo.
At VII he has contributed to two major book projects, «Tsunami» and the «Congo: Forgotten War." He has had several solo & group exhibitions and is represented at the collection of the Danish Royal Library.
He is credited with being one of the driving forces behind the new wave of Danish photojournalism.
In February 2008, he will release his second book, Mirror, about the obsessive world of bodybuilding.
Joachim lives in Denmark, with his wife and their two boys.
Award-winning Danish photographer, Joachim Ladefoged has worked as a professional photographer since 1991 and is a member of the international photo agency VII. Today he photograph appear in magazines such as The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Newsweek and TIME. Looking behind the scenes at bodybuilding competitions in Scandinavia, this book takes readers into a world where the reflections in the mirror are never good enough. The heavily pumped bodies evoke both fascination and horror and the athletes know it. The sprinter has the time to race against. The weightlifter has the weights. The bodybuilder only has the mirror - said one of the bodybuilders photographed in this book. This book takes an artistic look at bodybuilders through the lens of a photographer who sees their muscular bodies...
Photojournalism and Portraiture Symposium · Tribute to Gisèle Freund on her 100th anniversary
Born in Berlin in 1908, Gisèle Freund was one of Europe's most prominent photographers and a pillar among French feminist intellectuals after fleeing Nazi Germany and settling in Paris in the 1930's, where she pursued her doctoral studies at the Sorbonne. Her thesis on photography in France in the 19th century was met with scepticism, because photography was not considered a serious study then.
In the course of her long career, she went on about 80 photographic assignments around the world, mainly for Time and Life. As the only female founding member of Magnum, she earned her living as a photojournalist. Today however, she is noted for being one of the greatest portrait photographers ever. "She wa...
The Prize for Young Photojournalism was established on the initiative of Hansjoachim Nierentz in collaboration with photojournalist Eberhard Grames. It ran between 1991 and 2003 and was sponsored by Agfa. The competition, which attracted entries from around 2,800 young photojournalists over the years, aimed to discover images which told stories; pictures of individuals illustrating the many states of humanity: the perpetual suffering, joy, war, disease and suppression.
Image series by the prize winners and other outstanding individual shots from the seven competitions were given to the German Historical Museum in spring 2007. This new acquisition gave rise to the current exhibition, which reveals the world of the nineties from the perspective of young photojournalism. The young photographers witnessed it all - from the...