BJØRN CHRISTIANSEN | Photographer

Yesterday Foto.no published a photo I shot in Marrakesh, Morocco in February 2011. The article is about my old school having an exhibition in Essaouira with previous work of students at Norsk Fotofagskole has shot during their study trip to Morocco, called Ansikter (faces).

The two boys on the bicycle was on their way home from school. Even though traffic is unsafe and they both knew the hazardous of cycling this way, I believe the boy hanging around his friend or brother is very confident in him.

Want to see more of my documentary project in Morocco, follow this link: Morocco

In recent days I have photographed models from Modelbureauet Modelbooking. Tuesday I photographed Rasmus Michaelsen with clothes from Ei´kon. We used the store as a base and walked around downtown and found some locations that matched the clothes we used. Wednesday I shot four photo shoots, tree of them were polaroidshots and one larger testing with Jennifer Hansen in studio. Skyderiet which were the location of the studio shoot, was owned by Christina Lykke, a renowned photographer in Denmark. Today I have been in Aros, an art museum, to photograph Stephanie Bäckström with Maria Schläger Jensen as make-up artist and stylist.
Next week I am back doing school photography. I believe my boss is sending me on a road trip up north again, this time to Bodø, Narvik, Harstad, but I am not quite sure yet.

Here are some pictures and a video I shot of Stephanie for a half ago:

Here is the second batch of the photos I shot of Karoline Holand Fosby last weekend. Enjoy!

Tomorrow I am driving to Fosen Videregående Skole in Bjugn Kommune to shoot the second year students and on Wednesday I am extending my road-trip to Frøya Videregående to shoot around eight group photos. Looking forward to be on the road again.

Willie Nelson – On the Road Again

Can you see the UFOs in the sky? They’re not, it’s just dust on the sensor.

Yeah, I wish this was my view during breakfast, but no. New week, soft start. Today I’m driving to Orkdal to portraits at Orkdal Videregående Skole. It is just a few portraits of students who didn’t show up on the main photo shoot. Around four I am going to say hello to Liv-Miriam Nordtømme to shoot a portrait series of her in a more documentary style.
Have a great Monday, and week!

Right after my stop at Saltfjellet, next to the Arctic Circle it started pouring down. I am glad I sat in my car, dry and warm.

Arriving in Bodø resting at a hotel room the size of a small student flat, as opposed to the previous room there is certainly room refrigerators. It is not that I will spend most of my time here anyway, so it can hold.

Driving from Mo i Rana to Bodø went relatively smoothly. I had a couple of stops on the trip to take some images of nature and to have a snack and re-fill my coffee mug. Crossing the Arctic Circle was not as eventful as I had hoped for. A small, futuristic designed restaurant with a parking lot was what marked the magic threshold. This is the second time I’ve been north of the Arctic Circle, the first time was when I took the plane to Tromsø to visit my cousin, not the big climax then either. It helped little that I have neither seen polar bears and reindeer on the trip north. Tomorrow I start the photo on Bodin High School before catching a flight back to Trondheim again in the evening. Hope to get a taste of the city after work tomorrow. Some suggestions for what might be a good idea to see, be so kind as to post me a comment.

Here is a picture of Rachel Nordtømme I photographed early spring. The image is going to be used as a huge sponsor sticker on her car or something like that. The picture was taken on the track at Øya in Trondheim. The ambient light was still a little too bright for me to get to freezeher properly at the moment so you can see some movement by her feet, but it’s like that when you work under pressure and need to get a job done. The image isa also illuminated with three Nikon SB-900 Speedlight flash units and a Elinchrom Ranger. At the shoot I brought along Oscar Stoltenberg Johansen and Ingrid Marie Nymoen as assistant photographers helping me out setting the light properly.

Rachel was unfortunately injured during a competition this summer, but is now back on his feet ready to dance her way to fame in the TV-show “Skal vi Danse” running on Norwegian TV2, hopefully all autumn.

Today is my last day in Mo i Rana for this time. I’ve been here since Sunday night and finished the job for three o’clock before I turn my nose north to Bodø and an approximately four-hour drive over the mountain. I will be in Bodø just a day before I travel by plane back to Trondheim and home again to relax this weekend with lots of photo shoots with some other models than students to have a photo on the school’s certificate.

Stuck at the airport I shot this picture of a Bombardier Q Series, Dash 8, from Widerøe taking of from Værnes. It is the same aircraft type I am flying with in about 30 minutes, destination Mosjøen. I remember the first time I flew with this airplane to Brønnøysund, I was around seven years old traveling alone to visit my cousin. Before the 9/11 and the terror attacks, I got to ride in the cockpit with the pilots. So many buttons to push and so many levels to pull. Read more about the Dash 8 at Wikipedia.

I’ve spent the last four days in Mosjøen photographing Mosjøen Videregående, all three departments, and now I’m heading back home to Trondheim for the weekend. Sunday I’m flying back up north with SAS / Widerøe and driving to Mo i Rana shooting portraits of Polarsirkelen Videregående. Looking forward relax and spend some time with my girlfriend. Have a nice weekend!

Today I finished a bit earlier with portrait photography than expected on Brønnøysund High School. After a quick stop at Rema 1000 around lunchtime I turned my nose north toward E6 and Mosjøen, my next city on my photo tour. Just after fifteen minutes I stopped at a pier in Skomovika to eat my lunch. Feeding fish, watch the crabs that lurk in the seaweed and starfish family discuss foreign policy is not something I often do, but it was a fantastic feeling to sit and nod your legs in the water.
I arrived in Mosjøen around four o’clock in the afternoon and took into Lyngengården, one of the towns many hotels. A very nice hotel right besiden the train station overlooking the city’s main industry and Øyfjell. After having oriented myself with the help of a map I got for free in the reception, I went downtown looking for something to eat. I found Chinese-, Kurdish-, Italian- and the regular drive-through-hamburger-restaurants, but I was looking for something that didn’t taste the same as everything else. After checking the menus at atleast five restaurants and caféterias I ended the election of Ferdinand the Bull and beef. I am quite surprised to have found so many restaurants and cafeterias without hardly see a single person in the street. Ghost town as Rørvik I visited well over three years ago?
Now I sit on the site and look over the shooting schedule for tomorrow and considering a pillow and duvet if not for too long.

The first day of portrait photographing at Brønnesund Videregående, commissioned by Iris Skolefoto A/S, went well. Around 160 portraits of students at Brønnøysund secondary, first graders, is photographed and about 70 students are left to shoot in tomorrow, before heading further north to Mosjøen. The afternoon is spent at Sømna with aunt, uncle and three cousins ​​on a relatively large farm. Here they grow potatoes, run forest, chickens and a lot of cattle.

Day six and we are in Essaouira relaxing with no particular assignments just being tourists and doing our own projects. A few days ago there was a storm somewhere in the Atlantic ocean that sent some quite big waves around seven meters tall giving us fantastic pictures. The weather down by the sea is warmer than in Marrakech and it is a more relaxed atmosphere here. Tonight is our last night in Morocco and tomorrow we head back to Norway. I am kind of looking forward to coming back home to my own bed and the Norwegian food though it’s more expensive.

Today I have just been wandering around town with Sascha Njaa taking pictures and drinking tea that both made us feel a bit queasy.

Day five of our stay here in the Medina of Marrakech, Marocco I spent the day being a tourist a few hours buying gifts for my friends and family back home. After having a break in around noon I went out by myself photographing photos I wanted to take for my own use. I came across a vegetables salesman and his friend that I payed to portrait. After I was done photographing some young guys stopped me and said that they owned that particular area and they wanted a fee from me photographing there. I just walked and shook my head, after a few meters I turned around and saw the two boys walk up to the two salesmen and took the money I just gave them as a payment for the pictures. I took a walk around the area and walked passed the two friends I had photographed and gave them discretely a new payment with the same amount since they just got mugged for my other money.

Tomorrow we leave the Riad Omar, the hotel we are staying at, at 7:45 am for Essaouira to relax for a few days before we head back to Norway.

Just a quick update before I go to bed. Today we went to a photo gallery in Marrakech which was one of the only photo galleries in Marocco with around 7000 historical photos from around 1870 to 1930. Afterwards I went on with the photo project shooting the last pictures I needed for my assignment we have during our stay here.

Day four of my trip to Marrakech, Marocco and I am trying out the technique of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s, The Decisive Moment. These two pictures was taken yesterday in the old Souk where mainly the local inhabitants of the Medina go shopping for meat and vegetables. The two boys on the bicycle was on their way home from school. Even though traffic is unsafe and they both knew the hazardous of cycling this way, I believe the boy hanging around his friend or brother is very confident in him.

I was waiting about 15-20 minutes to for the sky to clear and the sun to break through the bamboo rooftop above the street getting the distinct rays hitting the smog from the scooters and cars driving up and down this street.

The second picture I waited for people coming around the corner to get the picture. I didn’t really know what I was getting when I heard the sound of the footsteps of this kid.

Greetings from Marrakech, Marocco. This is the second night at Riad Omar and we’ve been walking about in the Medina in Marrakech the whole day. These are some pictures from our flight down from Gardermoen, Norway till the everyday life in the old town of Marrakech. For those of you who don’t know what I am doing here I can tell you we are on a school excursion with Norsk Fotofagskole to Marocco. We’ll be staying in here untill Thursday when we are leaving for Essaouira by the coast and stay there till Saturday. I’ll try to post some pre-edited photos from my trip doing both our assignments, documenting Marrakech and just happy pictures of my fellow students.