Slideshow "The Young Ones"

Slideshow of my photobook "The Young Ones" (Journal, 2019).
Pictures taken 2002-19 in Stockholm, Öland, Kivik, Östersund (SE), Bucharest (RO), Rome (IT) and Costa Rica.

PHOTOS & TEXT
Simon Johansson

MUSIC
Simon Johansson
Christofer Stannow

www.simonjohansson.se
www.journal-photobooks.com

MY FATHER WAKES ME AT three o’clock in the morning as agreed. I’m not sure what’s most exciting, to be up watching TV in the middle of the night, or that man is landing on the moon. No matter which, the grainy black-and-white television image of Neil Armstrong in a space suit floating down the ladder has stuck on my retina. While man takes the giant leap, 380 439 kilometres from our living room, I take a small step to expand my very own universe.

Early every morning, at dawn, I steal the brand new bicycle belonging to the boy next door. Despite being told off several times, I continue to rise before everyone else, lug the bicycle down the stairs and onto the pavement. The bike is too big and wobbly but I manage a few metres at the time. I sway into flower borders, fall on top of rose bushes, scratch myself bloody, crash into the tarmac and graze myself, again and again. But I don’t give up. With the stubbornness of a five-year-old, I lift up the bike which isn’t mine and try again. The red lacquer is scratched and has lost some of its shine. I’m bleeding and bruised. But it doesn’t matter. I’m five years old, man walks on the moon, and I’m determined to learn to ride a bike.