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. 

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. 

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:

Personal / Fashion :: Charlotte S

When I was living in Trondheim, I focused a lot on fashion photography, simply because I find it very fun and rewarding to do. I can play with all those technical tools to make pictures stand out, I can do all those things in photoshop - but most important - you can never be too creative.

Moving up to the north pole makes fashion/beauty photography harder, simply because there are not much clients here. The days are spent making money on commercial photography to pay the rent, so fashion is now more personal projects, just to maintain the skills - and naturally to have fun.

Charlotte S. was a girl that I spotted during those late hours in a moist weekend, so I approached her to see if she wanted to drop by the studio some day. Normally I don't do that, but she had a special look and I really wanted to shoot her.

So here are the pictures. They are very graphic this time, just something that I wanted to try out this time. I enjoy how they came out, and I hope you enjoy them too. Just to mention it;  there are no photoshop effects on these images, everything is done in front of the camera.

PS! Charlotte S. is now living just outside Oslo, if you are a serious photographer and want to use her as a model I can provide contact info.

Personal work, portrait of my dad

While I find commercial and fashion work most exciting, portrait photography is something that just feels very natural for me. It´s just that moment of no stress - just me, my camera and the model. That is a very comfortable place to be.

This portrait was just shot in a hurry. My dad popped by and his meter was running out, so I just grabbed my camera and lights and dived into it. And I just love the result. It's so calm but still full of expression. And the colors just flows so nicely.

So even if this is a private portrait, I just wanted to share it with you.

Commercial job :: Settem Transport, Trondheim

Here is a new job that I did for Settem Transport in Trondheim. Settem Transport is the sister company of Elvrum Transport, which is the job I uploaded to the blog previous of this one. They wanted similar, but different images for the two companies, so I decided to link them together with a surreal theme.

While Elvrum Transport is hauling goods into Trondheim, Settem Transport is in the crane business within Trondheim, hence the expression of the image.

This has been a fun assingment which I enjoyed. Hopefully you will too.

Commercial job :: Elvrum Transport (Trondheim)

It's been weeks since I updated the blog, and that is because there has been a lot of work, both with the new gallery but also shooting different commercial jobs - most of them rather big.

But finally I get to show of some new work! This job was shot in the last days of August and in the first days of September. In total this was about 200-300 hours of work. I took about four days just to shoot because I needed to wait for the light that I wanted, and because the locations were far away. One of the locations was 1000 km away, the truck was shot 700 km away from the office.

The backdrop is "Dovrefjell" between Oslo and Trondheim, and the city in the horizont is Trondheim. Elvrum Transport is a lifeline for Trondheim, constant supplying the city with their 30+ trucks.  "Dovrefjell" mountain is what separates Trondheim from the capital of Oslo and in the winter it has very harsh driving conditions, but you can always depend on Elvrum Transport.

Before photoshop:

Raw files:

Behind the scenes - Photoshop video

Behind the scenes: Waiting for the correct light, hating the moskitos (had to run back and forward to the camera for every shot to avvoid a "black cloud" in front of the lens)

Behind the scenes: Shooting from the back of a truck to get the correct perspective

Behind the scenes: When you need to get the light 5 meters up in the air, you need to think creative

Behind the scenes: Shooting Trondheim from the hills outside the city

Grand opening - Photogallery and studio

First of all: thank you everyone who showed up at the opening last night, it was such a good feeling to show everybody what we have been struggling with for the past 18 days. We could not announce the opening untill two days before, because some of the pictures for the exhibition was delayed in transport. And with that in mind, around 40-50 people showing up felt very good!

All this has just been a crazy journey. After my studio partner recently passed away, I needed to find a new studio space, and I was offered this place three weeks ago. But it was too big for my needs, and coming directly out of all the gallerys and exhibitions in London it was obvious what to do with the extra space.

So a studio/gallery place was born, and both are sorely needed in Bodø. There are no other commercial photographers in the area, in fact the nearest is something around 600 km away. And the gallery! Photographic awareness is something we got to have to be able to truly enjoy photography, and in a commercial aspect it's about getting the region competitive and be seen!

It's been three weeks since the idea was born. It's been 14 hours a day of intense working. It's been family and friends showing up and working hard to help. It's been 57 liters of paint. It's been arguments, happyness and exhaustion. 

But look at it now.

18 days ago .....