Gunillocentrism – web diary of a freelance journalist

The first time I discovered it might be possible to make a living as a freelance journalist was when I was travelling in Italy in June 1995, after having interned at Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish Times) during the spring. I remember sitting on a train from Ferrare to Venice in northern Italy: sipping wine, eating cheese, looking out on flat fields, making notes, planning interviews I would do in Venice – and thinking “Wow, this is my work! What a great work!”
It still is. So now I have been doing this for 10 years.
The text below is the first published text that I have found in the archives from that trip. It reflects how I, especially at that time, was into Russian and Italian cultures.

/Gunilla

Datum: 1995-06-19

Avdelning: Kultur
Sida: 21

Av: Gunilla Kinn

Ryska konstverk i Gauguins anda

FERRARA (SvD) Den ryske köpmannen Sergej Sjtjukin hängde i början av seklet sin
samling med 16 tavlor av Paul Gauguin tätt, tätt, tillsammans på matsalsväggen
så att man knappt såg var den ena målningen började och nästa slutade. På så vis
kom de färgstarka bilderna med exotiska motiv från den franske konstnärens
vistelser på Tahiti och andra Söderhavsöar att likna ikonostasen i de
ryskortodoxa kyrkorna.
Sergej Sjtjukin och hans två mecenatkolleger i Moskva, bröderna Michail och Ivan
Morozov, kom från familjer som blivit förmögna på textilhandel. Pengarna
använde de till att köpa konst, framför allt av de franska impressionisterna som
Monet, Dégas, Renoir och Cézanne men också av van Gogh och Picasso.
På plats i Paris upptäckte och köpte Michail Morozov Paul Gauguins tavlor, föga
uppskattade av samtiden, som han förde hem till Ryssland samma år som både han
själv och Gauguin dog, 1903.
Sergej Sjtjukin inredde sitt privatpalats, som senare blev säte för
krigsministeriet, med ett rum för varje konstnär. Moskvas unga artister fick
komma dit för att se och lära. Och det gjorde de: många av de ryska
avantgardekonstnärerna, som Natalja Gontjarova och Michail Larionov, beundrade
Gauguins exotism, hans klara färgskala och hans intresse för folklore.
Gauguins målningar och de ryska konstverk han inspirerade till visas till och
med den 2 juli i Palazzo dei Diamanti i Ferrara i Emilia-Romagna, Italien.
GUNILLA KINN

From now, my field office is on 5601 Hollywood Boulevard. Cool address, huh?!
This is a motel in the best classical, American, 50’s style you could imagine, with a glamourous front and a small swimming pool (and, luckily, wi-fi Internet connection…)
Hollywood Downtowner Inn

It feels empty not to cover indy racing anymore, but perhaps four days of hanging out by garages and pit stops was really enough… I and my friend Karen did something completely different and very exciting on Monday: we drove to the small town of Columbus, Indiana.

Columbus is a town with less than 40,000 inhabitants, about one hour’s drive south of Indianapolis. It was once listed as having the sixth most interesting architecture of American cities – after Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Washington. Quite impressing for such a small town!
In the 1950’s, a multinational steel engine company with its head office in downtown Columbus decided that it wanted to create an ideal community, and so commissioned some of the greatest architects in world to design buildings. There are numerous churches, schools, power plants, and residential houses there, designed by architects such as Eliel Saarinen and I M Pei and built from 1950 and into the 80’s.
Columbus, Indiana - Architecture History

Columbus was really strange to see – a juxtaposition of world class architecture and regular blend strip malls of any American town or suburb. We only had time to check out a few of the buildings, unfortunately, because I had to rush to the airport. Will have to come back!

So, leaving Karen behind in Indianapolis, I flew to Los Angeles via Chicago. Tomorrow, I wil drive to Corona – there is a lot of driving, and I hope watching the quick race cars hasn’t gotten on my mind!

/Gunilla

Hey, this is a cool girl:
Woman Makes History at Indy 500 Without Checkered Flag - New York Times

I have met with and talked to Danica Patrick, and she is terrible to interview because she is so … hard. But what she is doing is very cool.

/Gunilla

Today was race day, and I was planning on blogging about the race – but I ended up not to. I had to concentrate on being there, seeing the race, trying to understand what was going on, writing my texts, submitting my stories… I have not exactly become a motor sports fan, but I did think it was very fun and exciting to be there.

The Swedish participant Kenny Bräck, who was the only reason any Swedish reporter was there, unfortunately had to give up after almost half the race – because of a failing little nut (mutter, in Swedish). But he was in fact happy anyway afterwards!

I am naturally exhausted, and will very much enjoy tonight’s sleep! Now it’s time to focus on another story: that of a Swedish citizen in jail in Corona, California.
Read all about her case here:
Annika Östberg Deasy
She has been in the media for years…and perhaps her having to be in a jail for a murder her boyfriend committed might come to an end. Or not – the family of the murdered policeman does not like the idea of Annika Östberg serving the rest of her term in a Swedish jail.
Many of my collegues who have covered the Kenny Bräck story (the correspondents of the Swedish Television, the tabloids) will go directly from being fake-sport reporters in Indianapolis to fake-crime reporters in the outskirts of Los Angeles…

It is unprecedented that I am being sent to places to cover news! And that someone else pays my expenses!
Usually, I am sending myself out, and usually I am mostly doing news feature stuff - not instant news like this (that has to be transmitted immediately…). I even had to persuade my editors at the Swedish National News Agency to let me go from New York to Washington to cover the US election in November, but when Swedish citizens are on the spot the story is obviously different.
Now there are two news story assignments in a row! Well, it probably won’t last…

/Gunilla

P S Please note - not only did Dagens Nyheter publish one or two of my Indy 500 pictures. Aftonbladet did, too.
Aftonbladet: Bräck tvingades bryta i comebacken
Scroll down a lot for the picture of Kenny Bräck; it says Foto: Scanpix/arkiv as a byline. (Of course it should have been my name there! )

Yeah, Karen came today! She is one of my coolest friends in New York, and she immediately expressed interest in going to a bizarre place such as a racing event in Indianapolis when she was told I was going here.
And today I picked her up at the airport! She arrived very stylishly clad, in a white coat and a red silk scarf which looked great with her long, dark hair. We immediately hit the road and went to the race stadium area, and out in Suburbialand to look for a bizarre ultrasuburbian motor thing. After a while we returned, again passing throught the area where Indy 500 is taking place tomorrow. Oh, my God, people are partying, binge drinking, buying ridiculouos things, prompting girls to “show their tits” Hmmm…not very stylish. So we had to go to The Villa and have dinner. There we met Josh, a native Indianapolis guy who treated us with delicious Spanish wine and the nuts and bolts of getting good Indy 500-tickets (and even helped Karen buy some good ones)!

Here’s my picture (mentioned below)!

DN - Sport - Världens största motorspektakel

It looks cool, I think, to see my byline as “Gunilla Kinn/Pressens bild”, doesn’t it?! (If my name is not there, they have replaced the picture somehow with something from the parade – which I think I will be very late for.)

Gunilla

I have been hanging out at the stadium today as well, taking pictures of the 33 race drivers when they signed autographs. Lots of people! Most of them queued up for Danica Patrick, of course, but Kenny Bräck was also quite popular. And that was of course where I took my shots as well…
I also hang out outside the garage again, and at the Drivers’ Meeting at the tracks, where the drivers queued up for the parade.

And then I had a great e-mail from my friend Kalle, who is a picture editor at Dagens Nyheter. Apparently they haven’t had as many pictures of Kenny Bräck as there were demand for in Sweden, because Kalle wrote something I just have to brag about (especially on a blog called Gunillocentrism):

“……såg på pressens bild din total dominans du har verkligen scååpat ut alla andra byråer..lite häftigt.”

Wow! Who would have believed. Not me. Apparently one of the pictures will be in Dagens Nyheter’s sport section tomorrow, at least in the first edition. So now I am not just a sports reporter, but also a sport photographer…

The weather is perfect today - warm and sunny, with beautiful clouds. Let’s just hope for equally nice weather tomorrow, then the race day will be fabulous.

Now off to downtown Indianapolis and the Parade!

/Gunilla

Now I have submitted no less than four texts from Indianapolis! Acknowledged, they are short, like wire texts always are, but nevertheless - my first sports texts.

Yesterday, I also gave sports photography a shot. Somehow, I have managed to get ackreditation as a reporter as well as a photographer, so I have access to the pits. Which meant that I could try taking pictures there. Then I realized it’s quite difficult to shoot racing vehicles… I cannot imagine how quick a camera has to be to keep up with the 360 km/h speeds of the indy cars! Well, I had some nice shots outside Kenny Bräck’s garage, too - at least that stood still.

/Gunilla

I am writing sitting next to the garage where Kenny Bräck’s indy car is being prepared for Sunday’s race (yes, wireless here, too…thanks to the sponsors). The car looks like something that grad students at the MIT would have put together in their labs for fun. 15 mechanics are working with it, and they are basically pulling the car completely apart. It’s a wonder they will ever get it rolling again, but they will! When the wheels are back…
There are lots of fans hanging out by the garages (they are probably waiting for Danica Patrick rather than for Kenny Bräck).

I was just told that Kenny Bräck will soon race in the competition for the pit workers - a fun event that makes for great pictures, so now I will try to do well as a sport news photographer, too. The idea is that the pit teams compete on changing tires of their respective cars, as they will on Sunday.

I am working in the Iindy 500 press centre, and had lots of help from Chris Cunningham, an Indianapolis college radio reporter who kindly explained what is actually going on in the track (I almost think one has to be native to completely understand).

Behind of me, I have Johan T Lindwall of Expressen, one of the Swedish tabloid New York correspondents. He is less helpful, screaming rude orders to his collegues on the phone.

Update: I did manage to get next to the track where the races where held – but Kenny was on the other side…so I didn’t get that great pictures. Anyway, it’s good competition – and it is fun to almost always be the only “photographer” in a dress.

/Gunilla