Jo Straube
Freelance photographer based in Oslo.
Jo has a BA in photojournalism from HiOA (Høgskolen i Oslo & Akershus) fram 2010. He then finished his MA in journalism in 2017. Becoming a professional photographer is mainly a result from working as a photojournalist for Norwegian and foreign newspapers and magazines. In addition, Jo has worked with his own documentary projects, each of them dealing with questions about democracy.
When Jo visited Iceland in 2010, it was to document the repercussions of the financial crisis. Towards the elections in Myanmar in 2015, I portrayed people who, in various ways, were involved or heavily influenced by the great political upheavals in the country, to nuance the image of the country as something more than the Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi who is facing an evil regime.
Between 2013 and 2017 Jo drove thousands of kilometers to visit over 200(!) public libraries all across Norway. He did this “to document the current state of this major institution for an enlightened public”. The project resulted in the book "The Norwegian Library" which won the “Most beautiful photo / art book” award of 2018.
