A little-known fact about me: I like to ride bikes. Ok perhaps it’s in fact the most known thing about me. Regardless, I spend hours/days/weeks of my life each year on a bicycle. It’s fair to say that, considering I live in Denmark, it’s not that interesting of a coincidence that I know Elena through bicycles. At some point in time a few years ago I slid into the DMs of her then boyfriend (now fiancé), Gustav. I asked him out on a bike-date, and off into the sunset we, (and our slightly too large noses), rode. I have ridden to and from Berlin with Gustav. From Amsterdam almost to Copenhagen. From Stockholm ALMOST to Copenhagen. Our rides have been primarily horrible and long and fraught with shit weather. But the one thing that a bike offers you aside from a slightly less dadly version of a dadbod, is relationships.

As you’ll come to find out with Context, most of my friends are cyclists or runners or some other kind of sportster (I hesitate to say “athlete). So, to find out that Gustav’s lady-friend also rode bikes meant that there was a high propensity to us becoming friends as well.

Now, Elena was always going to be a subject of Context, but she shows up in the early posts because I saw her on the street during one of the very first days, I started this project. I was shooting my friend Lew during Copenhagen Fashion Week, and Elena was randomly helping out at a showroom across the street from where I met him. Since Elena and I have always had a good rapport, I asked her if I could photograph her for Context and she obliged.

I mentioned it in Virgil’s story, but at one point I had a podcast, and it was very fucking fun. Elena was one of my guests on “So What Else Do You Want to Talk About?” and we talked about life choices and cats, but the producers cut out the entire section about cats which totally bummed us both out. I’m very much a cat person, and I am always drawn to other cat people, especially other cat people who too do not yet have a cat of their own.

Elena is part of the reason why Context evolved into a multi-day-per-person project. I shot the first images of her in Kødbyen in Copenhagen and thought it lacked something, so as I felt comfortable asking her, I requested to shoot in her apartment in Frederiksberg. I’d been there before many times, to start and end rides with Gustav or with the two of them. She’s showed me her successful and failed sourdough zoo. I’ve had coffee on cold days post-ride. And now I was there to see how well I could capture her in her home. The two photos on her sofa are, for me, what made me want to push forward with this project and ask people to step inside their homes as well.

I love living in Denmark, it’s truly the best place on earth for me. However, the one thing I find it lacks is diversity not only in ethnic makeup but in personalities. Elena really stands out for me as an individual. Her personality and mannerisms lay outside the norm, and I’ve always found her way of being to be refreshing and different and frankly just fun to be around. Oh, and Denmark also lacks elevation of any sort whatsoever, sorry about that.