One of the photographs I have never forgotten is of a little girl in Rwanda. She had been terribly burned and was not expected to survive.
Years later, back home in Oslo, I unexpectedly met both the Norwegian nurse who had saved her life and the little girl herself.
That meeting reminded me why I became a photographer.

I never travelled because I was fascinated by war.
I travelled because I wanted to understand people.

For more than ten years I worked as a photojournalist for Norwegian People’s Aid and the Red Cross in countries affected by war, displacement and humanitarian crises, including Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Photography became my way of listening. It allowed me to come close—not only to suffering, but also to courage, dignity and hope.
I still believe photography matters. Not because a photograph changes the world by itself, but because it can help us look a little closer.