How to be flash - Story of a Saab

If your name is Raymond Engmark and you are an educated photographer, there is a big chance that your mind is somewhat analytical, actually borderline to crazy. I simply beleive that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing it thorough.

After my return from UK my Saab 900 on English plates was just sitting there and I needed the money. The sensible thing to do when you are asking about 300 quid (3000 NOK) is to snap some shots with your phone, and just place a quick ad. Again; not if you are Raymond Engmark.

First of all, I wanted to try to light a car properly, and to edit commercial style once again (this being a used car for sale, I could not retouch it, only adjust light and so on). Second of all, I strongly beleive that there is always someone who will remember you for your worst picture - so keep even your worst pictures good.

I washed the car good since I could not retouch it, and I took a quick drive to find a decent location, and after a while I found a nice spot with good texture and tonality that would work with the car. Most of my equiptment was back in the town, so I did this shot with a Canon 580 EXII (on camera flash), transmitters and a 15 year old plastic tripod that barely can hold my camera (shivers like hell).

The picture is made up from 12 different flash settings, making the "RAW" file 1,7 GB before I started to edit. I have not received my new iMac yet, so all this was done with the cheapest Dell Laptop you could buy 4,5 years ago. I spent about 3 hours shooting an preparing, and roughly 8 hours editing.

Before:

After:

It must have worked, because just a couple of days after the car was gone for 300 quid. But then again, 300 quid for 11 hours of work in this business woun't even pay for the batteries in the camera. But hey, the shoot came out pretty nice, I could renew my skills and if this is my worst picture - it's pretty good.

This blog will have more updates in the future, but the fact is that I am working my ass off these days just to get started with my company. But I will try to get something in here at least once a week even now. Here it is more easy to publish things rather than to evaluate if it should go into my portofolio on my webpage or not.

Fun fact? I am working my ass off, but still it does not feel like a job. I guess it's ment to be.

Slowly becoming a studio

I have been working around the clock just about every day since I returned from London, but I have to admit that I have been very fortunate as well. I have been back in Bodø for just over three weeks now, and it just feels like I've hit the jackpot every day.

News on Request which is a big movie production company took me in to their place and rented me a studio on extremely fair conditions. And if as that wasn't enough, I had a meeting with the bank today, and they decided to finance my studio and my company on the spot.

Having secured the finances was a big relieve. This mean that I don't have to cope with equiptment that will barely do, and even though I am not anywhere near rich, I can get what I need to secure that my customers will get a good experience from working with me. Shooting alongside clients and having something act up is a situation I need to avvoid.

This picture does not lie, the studio needs a lot of tidying up. But I am making progress every day, and I am expecting to be there full time from August 1st. The studio is about 9x5 meters, and the only downside is really the height which is about 270 centimeters. But with the average model I will have bout 90 cm to work with, and that should be enough. I may also have access to a studio with about 5 meters height somewhere else in the building if I need it for a task or two.

Sparebanken Nordnorge (the bank) did treat me so weell today that I really need to mention their name. With the financial backing I got Raymond Engmark will be a corporation rather than a freelance photographer.

The only thing missing now is more jobs. When you are trying to start a business it's not any good that July is a public holiday in Norway. That means a lot of out-of-office replys to mails I need people to read. But I know there is a humongous potential in these areas, it's just a matter of working hard to get a toe inside one door - then the neighbours will follow.

First job : Trygg Luft AS

When you are trying to start a new business it is important to have both good friends and a network that beleives in what you do. Luckly I got both in my friend Aleksander Jakobsen who also just started a new business in Bodø called Trygg Luft AS (English: Safe Air). I wish to thank him for giving me the first assingment to get started in a "new" place.

Trygg Luft deals with the air most people breathe most day; the air inside your house. There are big advantages for both your health (specially asthma and allergy) but also preventing fungus and other humidity problems inside your house. After living in London, it is very easy to understand why you would need it.

The company have been installing a system on a building site in Bodø which benefits everyone in so many ways. It saves space, keeps dust and humidity to a minimum and keeps the whole building warm. When you have a construction site efficiency is important, and they wanted some pictures to show how little their system intrudes with the activity inside the building.

Aleksander first tried to take his own pictures of the installation while rushing between important meetings, and much like driving your car with only your feet; just because you can doesn't make it a good solution. Most of my lecturers have a rule - make every effort to make your next picture your best one yet. You might not acheive it, but it is a matter of professional pride.

I spent a total of 13 hours on nine pictures in total. It was about one hour of driving, just below two hours of planning and shooting, and ten hours processing the images in photoshop. I am sure that Aleksander would have been pleased with just a quick process, so we agreed up front that he would only pay for three hours of work.

I think that is a good system that we both benefited from. He gets better pictures than he paid for, and I get to push myself and know that I milked the last drop out of those pictures. It's all about professional pride.

Nowadays marketing is more important then ever, and it is really about finding that small leveredge that will make you stand out in the crowd. It's about getting your customer to pause at your webpage or ad instead of the one of your competitor. Below you can see the before pictures taken by Aleksander, and below there is the after pictures taken by myself.

If these were ads, which one would you pause at?

Exhibition was a success - moving on

The CASS exhibition was a tremendous success, on the opening night there was over 1600 visitors inside the gallery, which is outstanding! I got to meet new people and I was quite amazed on how many people enjoyed my work. As a purist photographer I was expecting a narrow crowd viewing my work, but instead I got a lot of feedback on my technical skills and the symbolism of the images.

Needless to say, I am very happy with the entire show. It was up from Monday untill Sunday afternoon, and there was a lot of people grabbing my contact details. I had 70 postcard pictures, 50 artist statments and 100+ business cards, and there was only a few cards remaining when I took the work down on Sunday.

For now that brings closure to my London chapter, and Monday morning I started the 3000 km drive to my hometown in northern Norway. Now there is a new chapter and a new set of challenges, my days as a student is finally over which means I need to start attracting new clients to pay the bills.

For me everything pointed in the direction of my hometown Bodø. I got my family, friends, network, access to a lot of different locations and different models. In short any project is possible in the town above the arctic circle. To me that makes more sense rather than moving to a bigger city and knocking on doors that have been knocked on thousand of times before.

Now it is all about pushing myself every day to create stronger images and enhance my portfolio all the time. I wish to work with big international clients somewhere in the future, and I feel the best way to do that is to make every image twice as good as my client expect all the time. Then one day, my dream about traveling around the world shooting fashion and advertising images might come true.

But untill that day you will find me in my office in Bodø from Monday the 25th of June. Feel free to call me on +47 99 000 906 or simply email me at engmark@live.no - and I will bust my ass to delicer twice what you expect.

Exhibition : CASS 2012 (London Metropolitan)

Raymond Engmark

+47 99000906

engmark@live.no 

www.raymondengmark.com

The Consumers

Giclée prints

62 x 93 cm

In a day and age where people have filled their lives with so many layers of meaningless objects that desperately crave their attention, we are in need to take the time to glance into this artists surrealistic window into the apathetic future of mankind. 

By the use of digital photographic instruments we are manipulated into a world where man only exists together with his only true friend; his own complacent image. It depicts how the egotistical average man lives so unaffected by any issues but the ones concerning ones private agenda. 

The artist’s strong roots in northern Norway come to show as he is naturally inspired by the Norwegian romantic nationalism era painters such as Eilert Adelsteen Normann and Hans Gude. And so it may only be appropriate that the artist himself has travelled around Europe to make every digital sketch much like his sources of inspiration did.

With concern to details and the use of light every story is transformed into a realistic digital canvas - and the viewers are transformed into a believable witness of the artist’s surrealistic future.

See pictures at www.raymondengmark.com -> Personal

Completing assingment for Trygg Luft AS

The last couple of days has been all about completing the assingment for Trygg Luft. I really enjoy working that way; completing one assingment before starting on a new one. I am always ready for a new project, and it's easy to fall behind on the developing part of the images if I am out there shooting all the time. Even though I really enjoy developing images in photoshop, I get way more excited over shooting new stuff. This year I have made a promise to myself to finish one project before I start with another. I have hundred if not thousands of personal pictures that need developing from the last couple of years, but I never get around to do it.

Since Aleksander is a friend of mine, he also wanted just a silly picture to keep for himself. Aside being a businessman he is also completely bonkers, so even though we only did one frame for this picture, it truly captures his personality. Kind and loonie! I can't get myself to do any work half way, so I spent about four hours on this image as well. But then again, it's so satisfying to see the results when you work at something.

I just played with color and contrast in this picture, and did my usual finishing touches which is my style. I think it's important to play and have fun in between just to keep it creative and playful. It really just goes to show that creativity doesn't stop when you turn off the camera, then you are often only half way there. Keep in mind that this picture was shot between desks in an office using only flashguns and one umbrella. And in the end, I am very pleased with the result.

The funny thing is, I bet that everybody will assume that the colors were all there, but that the facial expression have been changed in photoshop.

He also wanted me to do a black and white of the original picture, but I said no to that. The thing is, if you just convert a picture from color to black and white the job is really only half way done. When you are editing a picture for colors you use the colors to make the image. When you use black and white, people assume there is only black and white, and that colors don't matter anymore. Of course they do, they always do! Red is a high contrast color, yellow is a rather low contrast color and so on.

So I started from the top and did another picture in black and white, so that he would have a real alternative to use when he is printing materials in black and white. Above you can see the difference. On the right is the image just converted, on the left the image is developed for black and white and then converted. For example, in the one on the right you can't almost see any facial hair and his face is one almost flat surface. When it has been developed you can see so much more charactere!

Anyway, that assingment has been labeled complete. But there are new ones lining up all the time! So I don't think I will be getting bored anytime soon.

Exhibition this summer

One year ago for my final project at Norwegian School of Creative Studies I decided to do a piece for a organisation which works for the benefit of cancer sick children (Støtteforeningen for Kreftsyke Barn). The project was to portrait fifteen norwegian celebrities, and to auction the work away to raise money for the orginasation.

The project ran late (celebrities, deadlines and low budget is hard to mix) and before I could arrange the exhibition and auction I was due in London to start my bachelor degree. So sadly the whole thing had to be put on hold, but then again I got more time to think about what I wanted. But it just goes to show that everything brings something good.

Now that school is out I have the time to start planning a exhibition and finding galleries. It's all about getting people to donate as much as possible to the organisation, so I hope to find a good gallery and hopefully in Oslo to get more visitors and more publicity.

The video above is the one I used for the presentation at my final exam, and I enjoy how the tune of Roy Orbison works with the pictures. Hope you enjoy it too.