BJØRN CHRISTIANSEN | Photographer

Two photos from the fashion shoot I did with Maren Elise Aasen (Team Models / Trend Models) right before Christmas last year. Make-up and hair was done by Ann Karin Williams Aastø from OurStyle.

A video I shot of Maren last summer with the stylists from OurStyle

A few weeks ago, right before Christmas, I did a model test with Maren Elise Aasen represented at www.teammodels.no in Oslo. I did the photo shoot with her for old times sake and for having some new shots for my portfolio. Ann Karin Williams Aastø from OurStyle helped me out doing Marens make-up.

Wednesday I did a model test with Maren Elise Aasen from Trend Models and Team Models for her model card. To get a more various portfolio she wanted something with a bit more attitude than she have had the previous shoots this year. Not complicating things I set up the shoot at my gym using just a plain, white wall as a backdrop. Doing make-up was Ann Karin Williams Aastø from OurStyle. As my stylist fell ill the day before this first outfit was picked out of Maren’s friend’s wardrobe. The next outfits I had to do a quick trip to BikBok to pick out. Get well soon, Marthe!

Today some of the photos I shot at a catwalk show at Solsiden in October, was published in Adresseavisen as an advertising insert.

I do have a lot of different ongoing projects, from photographing crying kids in kinder garden, high fashion in Denmark, magazine portraits more or less known people in Norway and stone bricks in private gardens. This weekend I shot a fashion show, “Dans oppå bordet”, at one of Trondheims many malls, Solsiden Senter where the mall showed of clothes and accessories from their various stores and some inspirational hair cuts that was done by the two hairdressers, OK Frisører A/S and Sjakk Matt Frisør. I can’t remember all the stores that were represented, but after some searching on the web I found the following; Namasté, BikBok, Dressmann, Vila, Høyer Solsiden, Chantal, Ilse Jackobsen and Match Man/Woman.
It was said that it was sixty models from both Trend Models and DP Models in addition to co-workers at the different stores walking down the catwalk that afternoon. Solsiden Senter had also asked Pia Haraldsen, a woman famous for …, to host their show. Guest artist Mugi Nhozi from Dropout Musical with dancers from Let’s Dance performed a rap / song from a musical soon to be played in Trondheim. As a grand finale Tore Johansen also sang a tune for us. For me he is best known as Gjertrud form The Julekalender.

Liked the Dropout Musical-tune? Found it on Vimeo

Photographing the backstage

Some technical stuff
Rumors has it that hair dressers, make-up artists and models started working at six o’clock Saturday morning, a bit to early even for me to start photographing. Showing up at half past nine there was still quite a lot of action in the make-up room with hair dressers doing some amazing big hair-styles. Both female and male models had their faces painted with make-up. The make-up- and hair-room had dark, brown walls, lit with dim, fluorescent light and had some big windows with daylight shining through on one side. Not the optimized conditions for a photographer wanting to work with available / natural lighting considering the two different color temperatures. In these conditions one should consider what is the main light falling on the subjects faces and adjust for that. If you have better time you can neutralize the either one of the two temperatures, but with the time aspect and amount of files the costumer wanted, I didn’t have time for that.
In the lounge area, the canteen for employees at Solsiden Senter, I found the most interesting situations where my subjects (models), were in the beginning a bit skeptical towards me running around with two fairly big cameras taking photos, but after a few hours got a bit more relaxed.
Speaking of equipment, I brought both my Nikon D700 and Nikon D800, the Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 and the Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VRII. The D700 I brought mainly because with a BL-4 battery I can have a decent FPS at the catwalk, the D800 in combination with the 35mm is what I mainly use whenever photographing whatever. The 35mm has a fairly big aperture in combination with decent quality at high ISO on the D800 I can shoot in low / poor light conditions but still preserving the details. It might be that I should have opened the aperture a third to a half of a stop more and shot at ISO640. Knowing my equipment colors in the higher range of ISO has a tendency to become quite strange. The telephoto is also great for shooting documentary, at a distance, if you don’t want your subjects knowing they are being photographed. And as I typed that last sentence I felt that I was leaning towards becoming a sleezy paparazzi photographer with dirty intentions. That’s not the fact, but if you want to photograph something happening without having to stage everything, a telephoto is a nice tool. You are also as a photographer quite far out of anyones comfort zone and they can carry on with whatever they do.

Photographinc the catwalk

I’ve been shooting fashion shows / catwalk for quite a while now. The first experience was for Runway Passport at Oslo Fashion Week where I learned that FPS combined with a decent wide aperture, fast auto focus, a telephoto lens with a stable platform was the best combination for getting the shots decent shots of the models. When it came to lighting that day, Solsiden Senter has huge rooftop windows letting daylight inside the shopping mall providing a lot of light in the open areas. This catwalk was built with the end of below the second floor giving the photographers some problems adjusting the exposure when the models were just at the end of the catwalk. I decided to have most of my shots taken in the open area and fire of some bursts with my D800 in the low light, overbuilt end of the catwalk. If you are for some reason shooting catwalk, a tip is to find out where the models stops and turns are. They are different from each show. If you are so lucky to get to talk to the choreographer he or she can tell you, but a main rule is to look at the first one or two models and figure out what their routines are.
Another tip is to figure out the exposure and white balance. You might consider being on the faster side of 1/125 seconds to get the sharpest images and an aperture around f/3.5 to f4 to isolate each models. If you trust your auto focus system you can always shoot at the widest aperture keeping in mind what unwanted effects in the photos that will give you, such as vignetting and not that sharp subjects. White balance is quite easy now days. A great tip is to set your camera in LiveView Mode, hit the WB-button and run through the temperature from 2500K to the highest kelvin using the LiveView screen to match the ambient light. If you are shooting runways that are lit by tungsten lighting you might also ask the light rigger, but mainly those lights are around 2750K.

Luckily the same show was set up two times that day, one at one show o’clock and one show at three o’clock. That gave me the opportunity to shoot the catwalk from two different angles getting the shots I didn’t get at the end of the catwalk. Getting some close ups of Pia Haraldsen, Mugi Nhozi and Tore Johansen.

The following gallery consists of all the shots I did this weekend from the fashion show.

Here are, I believe to be, the last two pictures from my editorial fashion series from Bårdshaug Herregård in Orkdal. The two models are Maren Elise Aasen and Unni Lund Olsen, both from Trend Models which is the local model agency here in Trondheim. The makeup artist is Tina Larsen from fstyle.blogg.no.
These two pictures is outtakes that didn’t make it to the final editorial fashion series that I shot for Kvit Magazine, an assignment at school in November / December 2010. The reason that these to pictures didn’t make it was because they were different in lighting style. I originally went for a natural lit picture with a lot of flare and since this is lit with a flash it didn’t give the series that romantic, natural and Norwegian feel that I was going for.
Dresses are borrowed from BikBok where the one that Unni is wearing is from the Jenny Skavlan for BikBok – collection. Shoes are borrowed from Bianco Footwear and the other accessories are bought at H&M.

Lighting the scene

In these two photos I’ve only used one flash, an Elinchrom RX600 with a octabank with just one filter in front to give harden the shadows.

Todays tasks

We are still having this photo marathon at school and this weekends assignment was making a poster for Trondheim Jazzfest which is a jazz festival in May. I don’t feel this assignment is going that well. Lack of inspiration and ideas for any photo as well as trouble finding studio time gives me headache. I have a model, a makeup artist and the smallest studio at school doing a beauty portrait this afternoon, but I’m not sure if it will make it as a poster on this springs festival.

Also Trondheim Kickboxing Klubb is starting up their classes for this spring today. It’s only rookies and experienced fighters that have their class today, the beginners course doesn’t start until next Monday, the 17th of January.

Utplukk som ikke ble med i magasinet – Del 3

Her er tre bilder til som ikke ble brukt i den redaksjonelle fashion-oppgaven vi hadde på skolen i slutten av November. Grunnen er at de ikke helt stod i stil til resten av serien på grunn av at lyskvaliteten var forandret. Jeg ville bruke naturlig, tilstedeværende belysning og reflektert belysning som vinduslys og reflektor, mens disse bildene er fotografert med fastmonterte glødelamper. Location er badet på Bårdshaug Herregård i Orkdal. Modellene er Unni Lund Olsen og Maren Elise Aasen, begge fra Trend Models i Trondheim. Hår og sminke er gjort av Tina larsen fra fstyle.blogg.no. Kjoler er lånt fra BikBok og sko er lånt fra Bianco Footwear.

Med dette vil jeg takke for i år og ønske et nytt år velkommen. Godt nytt år til mine lesere :)

Utplukk som ikke ble med i magasinet – Del 2

Her er to nye bilder som dessverre ikke hadde plass i fashion-magasinet vårt, Kvit. Modellene Unni Lund Olsen og Maren Elise Aasen er begge engasjert hos Trend Models i Trondheim. Tina Larsen (fstyle.blogg.no) har lagt sminken på Unni og Line Sofie Steinfinsbø har lagt sminken på Maren. Kjolene er lånt fra BikBok og H&M. Sko er lånt fra Bianco Footwear. Location er Bårdshaug Herregård og Sponhuset.

Da var oppgaven vår mote-magasin, redaksjonell fashion, levert, diskutert, evaluert og vurdert. Det ble en fin andreplass på magasinet “Kvit”, bak motebladet “Escape”. En velfortjent seier. Her er bildene jeg trykket i magasinet vårt. Det kommer en god del flere som ikke ble med på utplukket fremover, så om du har lyst til å se romantisk retromote er det bare å følge med fremover.

Kreditering

Modeller:

• Unni Lund Olsen (Trend Models)
• Maren Elise Aasen (Trend Models)

Hår og sminke på Bårdshaug:

• Tina Larsen

Hår og sminke på Sponhuset:

• Line Sofie Steinfinsbø

Assistenter:

• Jens Westbye
• Anita Eldjárn

Klær, sko og styling:

• Bianco Footwear
• BikBok – Jenny Skavlan
• H&M
• Cubus

Ellers vil jeg også takke for at Bårdshaug Herregård og Sponhuset stilte lokalene sine til fri disposisjon.

Andre fotografer i Kvit-gruppa som har lagt ut bilder:

• Jarand Boge
• Camilla Hay Jenssen
• Ane Aspén
• Heidi Hallseth
• Elisabeth Richardsen

Aktfotografering – Manneparfyme

I tillegg til andreklasses motemagasin hadde førsteklassingene innlevering av aktfotograferinga si, eller rettere sakt reklameopptakene sine for en manneparfyme. Her er noen av innleveringene de gjorde:

• Inga-Lill Larsen
• Malin Charlotte
• Magnus Bjørnerud
• Eirik Malmø
• Jon Danielsen

Portrettene er hovedsaklig ment til å brukes i mappene til makeupartisten (Tina Larsen) og frisørene (Susanne Amalie Nilsen, Daniel Furnes, Jørgen Eidem, Kristine Bjerknesli og Ellen-Kristine Framnes Skjelsvik fra H2-Akademiet og skal ikke brukes til selve fashion-serien. Lysoppsettet jeg brukte for å skyte inn portrettene var tre blitslamper. To striplights med softfilter på hver side av modellen og vinklet 45 grader inn, og en firkantet softboks (60×60) pekende 45 grader mot taket. Jeg har også fått assistenten min til å lette opp i underkant med en reflektor.

I dag har vi hatt opptak med Irresistible fra X-Factor som går på TV2 nå i høst. Jentebandet gikk dessverre ut etter noen runder, men på den positive siden hadde de tid til å stille opp på et barokkinspirert fashion-opptak for gruppa mi med fashionmagasinet Kvit. Vi fikk også hjelp av fem studenter ved H2-Akademiet, deriblant Susanne Amalie Nilsen jeg har jobbet med på ett par tidligere opptak, og Tina Larsen til å legge sminke og sette opp hår.
Hovedfotograf var Jens Westbye, assistenter var Heidi Hallseth, Jarand Boge og Ane Aspén. Stikkord til opptaket er mel og barokk. Det ble litt venting, men på tross gjorde jentene en fantastisk jobb.

På Bårdshaug Herregård i Orkdal

Vi holder som sagt på med redaksjonell fashion på skolen og skal i den forbindelse lage et fashion-magasin hvor vi får fylle fem spreads hver (fem dobbelt-sider) med fashionbilder.
I helga fotograferte jeg på Bårdshaug Herregård i Orkdal. Hotellet var så vennlig å stille den gamle herregården til fri disposisjon på Lørdag i hele fem timer. Med meg på opptaket hadde jeg Unni Lund Olsen og Maren Elise Aasen, begge modeller også fra Trend Models, Tina Larsen som gjorde sminke og hår, Jens Westbye og Anita Eldjarn som assistenter og gruppemedlemmer på prosjektarbeidet. Jeg fått låne to kjoler fra Bik Bok i Thomas Angelsgt i Trondheim i tillegg hadde vi med to kjoler av Jenny Skavlan. Bianco var som vanlig ikke vonde å be om å få låne to par sko av heller. Ett par med litt tilbaketrukket design og ett par med litt detaljer, roser, oppover ankelen.
Opptaket er ferdiggjort og nå står utplukk og etterbehandling igjen. Samt en god del assistering, klipping av bak-kulissene-serie og trykking.

Litt tvangstrøye-inspirert. Genseren er fra Bik Bok på solsiden.