Eve Edelheit: #100.

Oh It's Post #100.

Ahh, Home

Let me come Home

Home is wherever I’m with you…

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

For the past 6 months, Aarhus, Denmark has been my home.

But it’s been so much more than that. A place of learning, inspiration, challenges, and fun.

This study abroad experience has been more than I could have ever expected or hoped for.

When I left the states, I was very much in a rut, both personally and with my photography. I was making the same photographs over and over again and couldn’t push past it. I was ready for a change and a challenge.

Working at the Danish School of Journalism pushed me harder than I have ever worked in my entire life. And I loved every second of it. There’s an energy when you work with the students and teachers, a passion and focus for what they do that’s not only inspiring, but also contagious. I found myself feeding off this energy within the first few weeks of being in Aarhus.

I am extremely lucky to have worked with the other photographers in my program. Learning, laughing, “debating” and struggling together, we made it. Their final projects are incredible. Iranian youth in Milan, Refugee camp in Denmark, Christian youth in Denmark, Armenian wounded veterans, Czech nurses, Community garden culture of Denmark and Pig farms in Denmark. They all told important visual stories through multimedia and magazine layouts. I will miss our dinner parties, critique sessions, bus rides and karaoke.

But, I have also been lucky to get to know other students as well. Working with my friends in the other international programs has been so meaningful. Being surrounded by so many different cultures and perspectives has only inspired me to travel more but increased my curiosity about the world.

I loved working with the Danish photojournalism students. Through working with them, they have inspired, pushed and pulled with me at my photography and could be responsible for a major part of why my photography has evolved. They taught me to push the boundaries, break the rules, and work outside the box I felt trapped in. By the end of the semester I was hearing things like, “Oh Eve! You are beginning to shoot European” or “Eve, the American photographers aren’t going to know what to do with you.”

I’m making photos that I never thought I could make, telling stories that I only dreamed of telling. And I know, that this is the beginning of a whole new chapter in my photography and adult life.
I can’t remember the last time I was this truly happy.

I am looking forward to my going back to my “homes” in Columbia and Minneapolis. Listening to this new song I was just introduced to, I am beginning to realize why Aarhus has become such a “home” to me. It’s the people…and I already miss them.

So here I go. Cedric, rail pass, backpack in tow, I’m off to start an adventure I have been waiting a very long time to begin. To leave Aarhus, it’s difficult. But, I’m ready. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be back much sooner than I ever thought. So, for now, it’s see you soon.

Here are some photos from my last days in Aarhus: