@teklan

@teklan

Like many smart, artistic people, Tekla Evelina Severin landed her dream job—only to be disappointed by the reality of actually doing it. After studying structural planning and furniture design, she became an interior architect, a role she deemed fraught with compromise and scant creative space. Severin found an outlet in photography, rebelling against the white and gray used in her profession by capturing vibrant hues and posting her work online; freelance commissions eventually led to a full-time gig as a set designer and photographer in her native Sweden. “My eye still thinks like an architect, attracted to lines and angles,” she says, noting how her relationship with color has evolved into something more personal. “It’s my way of expressing my point of view: to clarify what I see, and accentuate it.” Her roots in photography stretch back to high school, when, during a two-week photo course, she was introduced to street photography. “I loved the work of [French photographer] Henri Cartier-Bresson, even the black-and-white of it,” she says. “But I was also an emo kid back then.”