Portraits by Waiters contains images of Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson posing in front of his own camera in different rooms, on different occasions. In his exploration of photography as a means of documentation and the contemporary use and status of the medium, Jóhannsson has created a visual diary of himself.
On every evening during an eight-week residency in Cologne, Germany, Jóhannsson asked waiters and waitresses to capture his portrait while eating dinner.
By posing in front of the camera, Jóhannsson reverses the role of the artist and the role of the photographic sitter. The operator is replaced by an anonymous person who, uncontrolled and forced, is capturing a portrait of the artist who consequently becomes the subject of the image. In this sense he removes himself from authorship.
