Bengt Wanselius1944- Photographer who has worked together with Ingmar Bergman in about twenty productions ranging from theatre and opera to film and television, among them Bergman's stagings on the Royal Dramatic Theatre between 1985 and 2002, from Miss Julie to Ghosts, Bergman's very last stage production. |
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Bengt Wanselius' formal photographic education was at Stockholm's Professional School for Photographers, 1959-1961. Until 1985 he worked as a freelance photographer. Some of these assignments took him to war-stricken areas in the Middle East, and other places of unrest or revolution as in Yugoslavia, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba. He has served as chairman of both the Swedish Photographer's Association and the Nordic Photographer's Association. He was selected by the Swedish government to be a member of the Swedish Culture Council, simultaneously teaching at Stockholm's Design School for Arts and Crafts, Konstfack. He has also held a position as assistant professor in the Photography Department at the University of Göteborg.
He made his acquaintance with dance- and theatre photography early on in his career. He has taken stills for films as well as television productions by directors such as Bille August, Bo Widerberg and Liv Ullmann. Wanselius spent 15 years as a House Photographer at the Royal Dramatic Theatre. Here, he alone was responsible for personnel portraits, archive, press and program materials, rehearsal and performance pictures, as well as photographic projections used in the scenography for some twenty new productions each season. Here he also made his acquaintance with internationally well-known theatre directors such as Arthur Miller, Andrei Wajda, Juri Ljublimov and Robert Lepage. His long collaboration with director Ingmar Bergman has created a unique photographic documentary of Bergman's works.
His latest exhibition in 1998 was with his dance photographs over a twenty-year period at the House of Dance in Stockholm. Wanselius has also been published in several books about theatre and dance, for example about Drottningholm's Theatre and the Cullberg Ballet. Since 1997 he is working as a freelance photographer again and has made several behind-the-scenes works for productions with choreographer Mats Ek, Thommy Berggren and Ingmar Bergman.
| Year | Work | Title | Media |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Miss Julie | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1986 | A Dream Play | Projections | Theatre |
| 1986 | Hamlet | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1988 | Long Day's Journey into Night | Projections | Theatre |
| 1989 | Madame de Sade | Stills photographer (Dramaten) | Theatre |
| 1989 | A Doll's House | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1991 | Peer Gynt | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1991 | The Bacchae | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1991 | The Best Intentions | Still Photographer | Film |
| 1993 | The Last Gasp | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1993 | The Time and the Room | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1994 | Goldberg Variations | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1994 | The Winter's Tale | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1995 | The Misanthrope | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1995 | Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1996 | The Bacchae | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 1996 | Private Confessions | Still Photographer | Film |
| 1998 | The Image Makers | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 2000 | The Ghost Sonata | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 2000 | Mary Stuart | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 2002 | Ghosts | Stills photographer | Theatre |
| 2003 | Saraband | Still Photographer | Film |