Eyeballs: Mikkel Mogensen

I first met Mikkel while on a holiday visiting a friend from Scotland who had made the move out to Malaga, Spain. A young gent with a thirst for travel and adventure. The southern coast city has been a hotbed for European riders travelling there to find a simpler, sunnier way of life, and Mikkel is lucky to flip between Malaga and the island of Fyn, Denmark where he studies. When he's not shooting photos with his Malaga crew you can often find him plowing fields back home... no shit. This one has been in the planning for a while now, but better late than never! Enjoy.

What made you pick up a camera in the first place? Do you have any formal training?

I started to pick up a camera when one of my friends (Luke Jackson) got one, he would bring it out whenever we’d go riding so we could shoot photos and film some stuff with everyone but I didn’t really get the bug until a couple of years ago when I broke my ACL and needed something to do while I could only cruise around. I decided to drop out of school to go study photography for a couple of years just after that, which was really fun, learning about all kinds of different photographers and just being able to see a ton of great photos and read the stories behind them really got me hooked. 

Why do you continue to shoot photos in a world dominated by video?

I think it’s more fun when you shoot a photo with a friend and try to capture just the right moment that you can keep as a memory forever and actually have a physical copy of, it’s not going to disappear after a couple of hours like the web edit or Instagram clip you spent hours and hours filming.

Where are you originally from? What made you move to Malaga?

I’m from an island in Denmark called Fyn where I lived for 10 years and I moved to Spain with my parents basically because they were tired of the Scandinavian weather, I had no idea what it actually meant to move to a different country with a culture that couldn’t be further away from what I was used to, but it worked out and now I’ve been here for 10 years and as of recently I’ve just moved back to Denmark to study agriculture for a couple of years.

Malaga is obviously a big port for BMX travel - do you get a pretty consistent flow of riders coming through that you can shoot with?

Yeah, there’s always different people coming to ride with new stories to hear, just the other day I rode with Julian Molina who is from Colombia and only has one leg, the kid shreds! That would never have happened if it wasn’t for Ruben making an effort to create new places to ride down here.

What is your favourite thing to shoot?

I’m a fan of shooting anything with a good story behind it, like showing up to the park or your regular spot and shooting a photo is cool but going out on a mission and finding something new and different is my favourite thing to shoot. 

Current camera equipment inventory?

Camera body: Canon 6d

Lenses: Canon 85mm F1.8, Sigma 15mm F2.8 fisheye, Sigma 150-600 mm F5-6.3

Flashes: Two shitty Zeus that only work when they want to. 

Inspirations?

Vince Perraud used to be a big inspiration just because I love the warm colours and how clean his all his photos look, George Marshall as well, all his work is so good! But lately Sergio Layos has really inspired me to shoot more black and white, a lot of people don’t know but he’s a really good photographer. 

Is photography just a hobby or do you make some of your income from it?

It’s Just a hobby, I used to make some income from it but I don’t want to shoot stuff that doesn’t interest me just for a bit of money, I’d rather have a real job and have the freedom to shoot whatever I want. 

What are your goals within photography?

To capture memories.