BJØRN CHRISTIANSEN | Photographer

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

During my stay in Copenhagen shooting Copenhagen Fashion Week AW2013, in February, I also did a few model testings. Here are some of the Dutch model Kim Van Tuijl at her kitchen in Copenhagen. Helping us out with the styling was Ryanne Sambros who is also Dutch, and is working for Episode, second hand store, in Copenhagen. Kim is represented by CPHWOLVES.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Angelica Adrianna Steen

Today I had a photo shoot with Angelica Adrianna Steen down at the track by Nidarøhallen / Trondheim Spektrum. We had overcast weather, a few drops of rain and light air, perfect conditions to make some cool flash shots I haven’t done in a while. This is one of my favourites from the shoot.

The reason I haven’t updated my blog lately is because of a harddisk-crash three weeks ago. I thought I had lost seven years of digital photography, but after some tweaking around in Ubuntu I managed to save around 90% of my work. I have cancelled my subscription to my on-line backup provider, Carbonite, because they only managed to back up 14% of my total work. Reason; After 200GB of backup they would only allow 2GB per day to be uploaded. Silly.

I have a great amount of photo shoots running in post production and have quite a few upcoming. The class we are having at school, the final class before final exam, is catalogue fashion. The first task is to make a fashion video using a DSLR-camera with built in video functions. I am having my first video shoot tomorrow at the rooftop of Trondheim Torg. Nikon Pro was so kind to lend me a Nikon D7000, if it doesn’t show up tomorrow I will have to go with a backup camera, Canon 5D MKII.

Foto: Bjørn Christiansen, models: Maren Elise Aasen and Unni Lund Olsen, makeup artist: Tina Larsen (fstyle.blogg.no)

Foto: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Maren Elise Aasen, makeup artist: Tina Larsen (fstyle.blogg.no)

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.

photo:Bjørn Christiansen, Home Guard

This is the second picture in my series that I shot yesterday of the home guard (heimeværnet) out on Ladehammeren in Trondheim. I was hoping that the photo shoot would be at around 3 p.m. that afternoon so I didn’t have to struggle with keeping the ambient lighting low and full power on my flash heads, but the grunts had their leave for the weekend at that hour. The shoot were taking place at half past twelve that afternoon, the ambient light was about f/8.0 at 1/125s and ISO200. So what I did was fire off the flash at f/11.5 to lower the ambient light and further more lower it in post production. The reason was that I wanted the picture to look a bit like a nighttime operation with the soldiers lurking around an industrial area. Hope you like the result.

Now I’m cleaning my lenses, formatting my memory cards and charging my batteries, making myself ready for tonights first photo shoot for Hipster.no at Vega. I got my press pass and my cards that I am going to give away to my fortunate models. Have a nice weekend!

photo:Bjørn Christiansen, Home Guard

Today I had a photo shoot with four soldiers from the Home Guard, stationed at Værnes. This is one of a quite a few pictures I shot of the very cooperative lads. Suddenly at my location there were this big horn-shape sculpture that NTNU had placed there, why get irritated when you can use it for what it’s worth. I organized my four grunts at the opening, lit them with a Elinchrom Quadra from behind and two SB-900 as a sandwich in front. It was a cold photo shoot and I believe my assistant photographer Jon Danielsen shot some behind scenes and video that will be published soon.
This photo shoot was originally the main plan of attack if yesterdays shoot failed. It’s not everyday I have such fine soldiers at my disposal so I skipped a meeting at school and did this photo shoot instead, with the blessing of Roar Øhlander, the headmaster of our school.
As you may have guessed there will be more parts in this series. I came home from the shoot about one and a half hour ago so I haven’t been able to look at and select more photos for post production, yet.

Feel safe with this guys guarding your door when the enemy is close?

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Zeleste Vejle, makeup artist: Line Sofie Steinfinsbø

Except lacing of dramaturgy between the mirror and the environment, the photo was accepted and no need to re-shoot it.

The next assignment is a group portrait of workers in action. It is to be glossy, commercial with a lot of energy. I just received the task and is still in figuring out what to do. If anybody has some ideas for me, they are very welcome to share them.

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Zeleste Vejle, makeup artist: Line Sofie Steinfinsbø

It’s early morning and I don’t know how many of you guys read blogs at this time of day, but I’ll publish a photo that didn’t make the selection for evaluation. It’s the second best in the series I shot yesterday of Zeleste Vejle as a mixture of fashion, retro and straight portrait. The assignment was photograph a portrait of a persons reflection. Makeup artist is Line Sofie Steinfinsbø.

Now I have to run to school for evaluatio!.

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Zeleste Vejle, makeup artist: Line Sofie Steinfinsbø

This is my second assignment of the photo marathon that we are having at school. This time the task was to photograph a portrait of a person, easy you may say. The boundaries were that we couldn’t point the camera directly at the person, but at the persons reflection. It was supposed to have a melancholic mood and maybe fit in a magazine for psychological health care. I approached the assignment with a naive point of view wanting to use the bus and the reflections of travelers, or a rear view mirror of the car. I didn’t do either. I called up the makeup artistLine Sofie Steinfinsbø, who I have been working with on the past fashion photo shoots, asking her to come over to put some hard looking makeup on Zeleste Vejle. The idea was to give my photo a classical film noir-look with a hint of fashion.

The location of the photo shoot was situated right outside my door and I used three flashes to light the model. One directly at her face, one from the rear of the model giving her a definition on the back and the last one as a trigger-flash on the camera.

I’ll post the photo tomorrow after evaluation.

Foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Gastromat no 5

Foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Gastromat no 4

Foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Gastromat no 3

Foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Gastromat no 2

It was all a lie, I didn’t screw things up yesterday, just testing if I could synchronize the Nikon D700 TTL pop-up flash with the Elinchrom studio-flash with TTL on the camera. I fired off a few shots but it didn’t work. If anyone have the slightest idea of how to fire a Elinchrom BX Ri 600 with built-in pop-up flash I’d be happy to know.

So here are my pack shots for the Gastromat-assignment, the “costumer” wanted a clean and modern feel in the picture. One of the challenges I meet was choosing the right pack. Gastromat has recently changed their packing from a flat, green label to a shiny one. I don’t believe that the course leader had that in mind when making this assignment. I went around town looking for both packs and found both the shiny, reflective and the flat, green at Rema 1000 in Olav Tryggvassons Gate in Trondheim.
The other challenge was finding the right bowl and the right soup to go with the box. I found two containers at Interia, not with the right color but a somewhat cool shape. I went for a thick, creamy cauliflower with a leaf of lemon balm leaf (melissa officinalis) to decorate it all.