Olai Fauske (1887-1944): Small town life in Sunnfjord

Olai Fauske, born at the farm Fauske in Naustdal municipality in 1887, was the son of Kristiane Mari Salomonsdotter and Anders Matiasson Reikvam. Olai was the oldest child from his mother’s second marriage, and therefore did not inherit the farm. He also suffered from bad health and was unable to choose a career involving hard physical labor. In 1904 Fauske decided that the best way for him to make a living was to become a photographer. In 1905 Fauske trained as a photographer under Otto Talle in Bergen for three months, and then returned to Naustdal and set up his business. In 1912 he moved his home and business to the nearby town Førde where he worked till his death in 1944.

Olai Fauske was for several decades the only photographer based in Førde and as such, he was the one people turned to when they wanted to document important events in their family life, such as weddings and funerals. Fauske also produced many studio portraits in his career, as well as photographing people’s everyday life of work and leisure.

Both in the early years of his career and later, Fauske travelled around the Sunnfjord region photographing the landscape and the people. The photos and postcards he produced was not only sold to the people of the Sunnfjord region, but, importantly, also to the many who had emigrated from Sunnfjord to the US. Fauske often received letters from the emigrants specifying which sights they longed to see again in the form of a photograph. His childhood friend Alfred, for instance, longed to see Erviki in all its summer glory: “When June comes I believe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to try and get a picture of Erviki, when all the hills are green and the waterfall quite big. I liked that the best. The boat, I do not know, it might be the same if it was not there or if it was moored to the quay. I don’t know, you know what’s best”, he wrote in a letter to Fauske in 1909.

Both Fauske’s business archive, his photo archive (approximately 8000 negatives and 7500 positives) and objects from his studio have survived into the present. In this set we present a selection of 150 negatives depicting small town life in Sunnfjord in the first few decades of the 20th century.