In Norwegian, Våryr means “spring dizzy”; the word is used to describe what people experience when, after the long, dark winter, the days begin to lengthen. Some of Hans Kristian Riise’s photographs of people on the west coast of Norway exemplify Våryr. Riise told me, “I got this feeling, like I could just go anywhere, drive up to the sea, swim in the river and find a café. People seem to have time for you, they’re like tourists, taking a bus and then walking without any destination in mind.”
He says that these photographs were inspired in part by Norwegian paintings from the mid-nineteenth century, may of which depict wanderers, usually on foot or in wooden boats. Riise said of his subjects, “These types could have been here two hundred years ago except they had modern style backpacks and modern shoes, but they were doing exactly the same thing people did two hundred years ago in this same place.”
All Photographs by Hans Kristian Riise
