I think it was amazing to shoot these images, because the uniform is under strict regulations and you don't find many photographers that have been able to shoot this inside a studio. I enjoyed it, hope others do as well.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Photoshoot :: Royal Guard
In december I did a shoot with a soldier from the royal guards. These are the men that protect the Norwegian king and the Norwegian castle in both peace and wartimes. This platoon was the ones that managed to get the royal family away from the Germans and over to England during the invation of Norway, and scenarios like this is what they train for even 70 years later.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Urgent shoot for Østbø AS
It's been a while now since the last blogpost. I decided ho have a real holiday during christmas, and when I got back to work, it only took one day before I got a serious flu. So the studio was basicly closed from December 23rd untill Jannuary 14th. But now everything is dandy.
The other day I got a call from Østbø As which work with special waste and recycling, they needed pictures for an advertisement with a 48 hour deadline. In finishing stages of creating their ad, they had discovered that their old pictures were not up for the job. I accepted the job and started to plan in between other shoots that day, but for a commercial photographer that is really toying with the results you get in the end.
Let me explain. There is a lot of different photographers out there. You got portrait, press, documentary, fashion, action/sports - and many others. In example, a press photographer often rely on getting plenty of frames to capture the exact moment that gives that case the correct expression. Most of the times, the picture only needs to be noticed for a day or two.
For a commercial photographer it's the other way around. We shoot few frames, we spend a lot of time bringing forward the expresion we want in photoshop - but most of all we plan, plan and plan to have complete control over every detail in the image. Which colors to use, what backdrop, what props, what location - and so on. And the image needs to last for months or even years.
Most big commercial shoots are planned in advance by an agency, and the photographer only gets a brief. And that agency can in extreme cases plan a shoot in houndreds of hours. A couple of months ago I spoke to a couple of photographers working for a frensh car manufacturer. They spent a full week driving around Lofoten just to find locations for the new campagin - and that is just a small part of the work going into the planning stages.
Now, I'm not saying that this is normal, but the key for good commercial images is planning and preperation. Fail to plan - plan to fail. Don't expect - inspect. And so on. So accepting a commercial job with a short deadline can also be peeing in your pants to keep warm. Sure you get the job now and the money that goes with it, but if you create poor or mediocre pictures you are painting yourself into a corner.
First of all, a photographer reputation rely on two things - his best and his worst image. The next thing is that if you don't show quality work at a regular basis, you will be known as the photographer who does ok work, but nothing more. That will not lead into anything bigger or better anytime soon.
This time I actually feel the images came out fine, especially concidering that I had to plan, shoot and edit within 48 hours. But then again, just 20 minutes before shooting the worker with a garbage can there were a blizzard, and I know I don't get that lucky every shoot!
So for future clients - not only my clients, but for every commercial photographer out there - if you allow us time to plan our images, that chances are that they will turn out ten times as good - if not more. And this is not a critique for any of my clients, it's just a helpful tip, because most people are not familiar working with commercial photographers. When I started my photographic education I only knew of portrait and press photography - so why expect something different from other people?
Enough jibba jabba! Here are the images!
For this shoot I kept record of time spent, for future refrences.
Preperation: 2 hours
Shooting: 3 hours
Editing: 11,5 hours
Often less planning shows in more time editing. On these images I was not able to light everything as I wanted and to have the perfect balance between ambient and flash outside, so more time goes into creating that effect afterwards. And that is just simply to give the image impact - make it stand out. Because when people turn that page in their newspaper, you want them to notice your message instead of the one from your competitor. It's that easy.
Before / after photoshop:
The other day I got a call from Østbø As which work with special waste and recycling, they needed pictures for an advertisement with a 48 hour deadline. In finishing stages of creating their ad, they had discovered that their old pictures were not up for the job. I accepted the job and started to plan in between other shoots that day, but for a commercial photographer that is really toying with the results you get in the end.
Let me explain. There is a lot of different photographers out there. You got portrait, press, documentary, fashion, action/sports - and many others. In example, a press photographer often rely on getting plenty of frames to capture the exact moment that gives that case the correct expression. Most of the times, the picture only needs to be noticed for a day or two.
For a commercial photographer it's the other way around. We shoot few frames, we spend a lot of time bringing forward the expresion we want in photoshop - but most of all we plan, plan and plan to have complete control over every detail in the image. Which colors to use, what backdrop, what props, what location - and so on. And the image needs to last for months or even years.
Most big commercial shoots are planned in advance by an agency, and the photographer only gets a brief. And that agency can in extreme cases plan a shoot in houndreds of hours. A couple of months ago I spoke to a couple of photographers working for a frensh car manufacturer. They spent a full week driving around Lofoten just to find locations for the new campagin - and that is just a small part of the work going into the planning stages.
Now, I'm not saying that this is normal, but the key for good commercial images is planning and preperation. Fail to plan - plan to fail. Don't expect - inspect. And so on. So accepting a commercial job with a short deadline can also be peeing in your pants to keep warm. Sure you get the job now and the money that goes with it, but if you create poor or mediocre pictures you are painting yourself into a corner.
First of all, a photographer reputation rely on two things - his best and his worst image. The next thing is that if you don't show quality work at a regular basis, you will be known as the photographer who does ok work, but nothing more. That will not lead into anything bigger or better anytime soon.
This time I actually feel the images came out fine, especially concidering that I had to plan, shoot and edit within 48 hours. But then again, just 20 minutes before shooting the worker with a garbage can there were a blizzard, and I know I don't get that lucky every shoot!
So for future clients - not only my clients, but for every commercial photographer out there - if you allow us time to plan our images, that chances are that they will turn out ten times as good - if not more. And this is not a critique for any of my clients, it's just a helpful tip, because most people are not familiar working with commercial photographers. When I started my photographic education I only knew of portrait and press photography - so why expect something different from other people?
Enough jibba jabba! Here are the images!
For this shoot I kept record of time spent, for future refrences.
Preperation: 2 hours
Shooting: 3 hours
Editing: 11,5 hours
Often less planning shows in more time editing. On these images I was not able to light everything as I wanted and to have the perfect balance between ambient and flash outside, so more time goes into creating that effect afterwards. And that is just simply to give the image impact - make it stand out. Because when people turn that page in their newspaper, you want them to notice your message instead of the one from your competitor. It's that easy.
Before / after photoshop:
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