BJØRN CHRISTIANSEN | Photographer

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

Today I photographed a portrait series of Charite Viken from DP Models, documentary style. The sun had just set and the weather was clear and cold. Great backdrop to avoid harsh shadows. Most shots are photographed with a Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/1.4G, might be a bit to shallow depth of field (DOF), but gear that is sharp enough to get usable photos even at ISO5000. Enjoy your Sunday!

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.

I thought the last post was the last for a while, but then I got a little time before my flight to Denmark too off and then I could post some more pictures from the photo shoot I had with the Charite Viken (DP Models). Here we are in a fairly narrow elevator. Nikon 24mm f/2.8, SB-900 and Orbis Ring Flash is the extra equipment I used in addition to my trusty Nikon D700. Make-up and hair was done by Ann Karin Williams Aastø from OurStyle.

Well, now I’m leaving on a jet plane, leaving the snow, rain, ice and cold. 2 degrees Celsius and sun is a fairly good upgrade.

Second part from the series I did for Charite Viken, artist represented by DP-Models. As the first part, this is shot with natural illumination in a dim staircase in a parking garage in Trondheim. The reason for all the noise in this picture is that I had cranked up the ISO-speed to 2500 to get a decent exposure at f/2.8 with my 24mm lens. Even tough it’s not done perfect technical wise, I felt that the rawness in both the style and posture of Charite expressed and the noise all over the image says something about what I am trying to express. First I wanted the photo to be in black and white, but the dirty green light the fluorescent bulb was casting set the mood perfectly. Make-up and hair was done by Ann Karin Williams Aastø from OurStyle. Thank you for helping out and doing such a great job at this photo shoot.

The recent days I have been assisting Lars Erik Berg from Centerteam doing a commercial job for Mascot Høie A/S. Høie is a manufacturer based in Fosen making bedsheets and pillows. It was fun and experiencing two days at the studios of Centerteam.

Sunday I am leaving for Denmark again hoping to get to do some model testing for Modelbureauet Modelbooking again and I will be back in Norway around Christmas. Which in short means that my blog will not be updated that frequently as the past few weeks. Hope you will take a look in my picture gallery and enjoy all the photos I have published the past recent years. Leave me some feedback and comments if you’d like and I’ll try to answer as soon as possible.

Yesterday I did a model test with Charite Viken an artist known from her early years as a child star from Melody Grand Prix Junior. In recent years she has become more adult in the style of music and is now working at Agape in addition to working as a songwriter. She is also represented by the newly established model agency DP-Models ran by photographer Ronny Manuel Danielsen. Hair and make-up on this photo shoot was done by Ann Karin Williams Aastø from www.OurStyle.org.

Here are some behind the scenes-shot by Ann Karin Williams Aastø