One of the boats capsized in the big waves in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, and the crew is working to empty it of water. Sea levels are rising and large areas along the coast of Bangladesh are now feeling the problems caused by higher tides and increasingly stronger storms. In and around Cox's Bazar on the east coast, fishermen notice that the sea is rising. But the fishing is still good.
A young boy at the Korczowa reception center near the Ukrainian border wait in front of a bus guarded by Polish police. The bus will take the Ukranian refugees to the airport in Warsaw. Thousands of refugees from Ukraine has been arriving to Korczowa, where they are able to rest and get food in a huge warehouse before being sent to other destinations in Poland or abroad.
Refugees and migrants are lifted off the inflatable boat and into the rescue boat operated by Doctors Without Borders. During the three-week trip to the rescue ship Geo Barents, refugees and migrants from five boats were rescued. They come from countries such as Sudan, Syria, Libya, Ivory Coast, Eritrea and Chad and most have been on the run for months and years. Many end up in captivity in Libya, where they are subjected to torture, forced labor and abuse.
The night between the 21st and 22nd of June, the pople of Latvia is celebrating the shortest night of the year, the midsummer. This night, they are turning away from Christianity and worships the pagans Gods. On a hilltop in the countryside in Latvia, near the town of Piltinkalns, a young girl is collecting flowers. The flowers are used for hair decoration.
Three dead Ukrainian soldiers are liftet out of a van by fellow soldiers at the frontline close to Donetsk, Ukraine, in February 2023. The three soldiers died from Russian bombardement of Ukrainian trenches.
Demonstrators in the frontline on barricades build the recent days after the violence and riots escalated in Kiev, Ukraine. A protester throws a tyre into the fire while the riot police is watching (to the right). Two protseters were shot dead by the riot police on January 22, which fueld the protests even more. For more than two months, massive protests against the government of Viktor Yanukovych have rocked Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The demonstrations started as a protest against the president's decision to forgo a trade deal with the European Union in favor of stronger ties with Russia. But it eventually revealed a deep-running fault lines within Ukrainian society. ©Espen Rasmussen/VII
A Janjaweed militia soldier in Darfur, Sudan. The rebel group has terrorized the local population since 2003.
Before breakfast, Kjersti Margrethe Adelheid Gilje, spokesperson for the Norwegian Defense League and member of SIAN (Stop the Islamification of Norway), says a silent prayer. From the project White Rage Europe.
In a house in West Lawn, Chicago, boys as young as 14 drink and smoke. They have masked themselves and waves around with 32 caliber guns. All of them belongs to the gang Gangster 2-6.
Members of the group "PPDM - Straight Edge Father Frost Mode" ice baths in minus 34 degrees in a park on the outskirts of Moscow. Every year the group gathers for an ice bath. The group runs a fitness center and focuses on healthy diet, hard training and living in a correct and healthy way. Many of the members are decorated with swastikas, German soldiers, Ku Klux Klan symbols, SS badges and other Nazi symbols, and many have a very violent background.
Tough Guy claims to be the world's most demanding one-day survival ordeal and it has been widely described as "the toughest race in the world", with up to one-third of the starters failing to finish in a typical year. Taking place in freezing winter conditions, the race is staged over a course of about 12 kilometres. It consists of a cross-country run followed by an assault course featuring 25 obstacles, including a slalom run up and down a hill, ditches, jumps, freezing water pools and fire pits. The race has suffered two fatalities during its history.
Young students visit the former Packard motor company building with balloons. They are gonna burst them to make sound recordings for a student project. The Packard plant is one of the most visited places in Detroit.
Displaced people seek refuge in a church in the village of Rubare, DR Congo 2008. They fled Ntamugenga after rebels attacked and burned their houses.
They stand in rows and throw lumps of clay on the dykes to make them bigger. But the work takes an enormously long time, and every single day the high tide comes and tears down much of what has been built. Every day at 12 o'clock the high tide washes over a number of islands in the south of Bangladesh, including the island of Padma Pakur. Enormous areas are submerged, villages, schools, agricultural areas and workplaces disappear. Tens of thousands have sought refuge on the ramparts that encircle the islands, which are the highest point in the area. The embankments were unable to withstand Hurricane Aila two months ago, and together with floodwaters, this leads to major flooding.
"The Forest King," Dagfinn Kolberg (53 years old), lives most of the year in the forest, either in a tent, under open skies, or in a cabin close to Vestfossen, Norway. He photographs and films life in the forest and plays music, hugely inspired by Neil Yong. He is taking a bath outside, something he does in summer and winter. - A book by the American philosopher Henry D. Thoreaus changed my life. I was 20 years old. The book was "Life in the Forest" and it was a revelation for me. Even though it was written 150 years ago, the author had the same feelings as me: The society is hustle and bustle, I want to go away. At that time I tried to study at the University in Oslo, but I quit and moved to the forest. I have been here since.
Worshippers attend Friday prayers at the collapsed mosque that was destroyed in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake in Balakot, Pakistan. The 7.6 magnitude quake that hit the area on 8th October 2005 killed over 80,000 people. Balakot was one of the worst hit towns as it was situated close to the epicentre of the earthquake.
A man who works as a chlorine sprayer waits for an ambulance to arrive in a busy district in downtown Freetown, Sierra Leone. The ambulance is coming to collect a suspected Ebola victim. The sprayer is tasked with spraying the ground, the ambulance and any people working with the dead to prevent further infection. Since the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2014, about 3,500 people, including 100 health workers and 11 doctors, have died of the disease. Though the number of infections is falling and life is starting to return to normal, the effects of the epidemic on the country's economy and society have been devastating.
Militia leader Danny Bollinger (43) resting on a couch in his home in Maryland, USA,together with his pitbull and a pistol. Danny says he is not religious but has a 'personal relationship with Jesus Christ', organised religion being what people kill each other over. Bollinger is the head of the militia 'My Brother's Threepers'. Bollinger and members of the group were present during the infamous 'unite the right' rally in Charlottesville in August 2017 but he insists they were there to hold the line between the Nazis and the anti-fascists, keeping them from killing each other.
Location
Oslo, Norway
Work
Films
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Espen Rasmussen

Contributing Photographer

Espen Rasmussen lives close to Oslo, Norway. He focuses especially on humanitarian issues and works as a photo editor at Norway’s largest news magazine, VG Helg.

He has won numerous awards for his work, including three prizes from the World Press Photo, first place in Sony World Photography Awards, several in the Picture of the Year international, and 45 awards in the Norwegian Picture of the Year.

In 2007, Espen received a $60,000 grant from the Fritt Ord Foundation to continue his long-term project on refugees and IDPs around the world. The work was published as the book “TRANSIT” in 2011, as well as a major exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.

Rasmussen is freelance lecturing photography at universities and he is also frequently giving presentations at photo festivals and for a wide range of other audiences. For the last eight years, he has been one of three editors/mentors in the Norwegian Journal of Photography (NJP).

Rasmussen has worked on several major long-term projects, among them: “TRANIST,” “Hard.Land “— a project about the American middle class in the Rust Belt, and “White Rage” — a report on right-wing people in the U.S. and in Europe.

Latest updates

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December 24, 2022

BarTur Photo Awards 2022

December 19, 2022

“Imagine: Reflections on Peace” at USIP

May 26, 2022

Espen Rasmussen’s Stories from Ukraine – Poland Border for VG

March 24, 2022

The Foreign Warriors

March 16, 2022

Separated by War

February 27, 2022

Case studies

Case Study: The White Rage Project

April 27, 2023
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