BJØRN CHRISTIANSEN | Photographer

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar F2 - Slow shutter Speed

People can be made invisible with a slow shutter speed. This photo is of a Sinar F2, an large format camera which uses film of the sizes 4×5 inches or even larger. These types of photographic media can record amazing high detail, but since digital sensor has to be as large as the analog film, there is no digital equal to this camera. The Sinar F2 and other large format cameras are usually used for photographing architecture and that is one of the reasons and the history behind this image.

As a task at Norsk Fotofagskole we were asked to do a commission project where the best photo were to be printed and hung at one of the display walls at the school. My idea was to photograph something that hailed the photography, something that in general could realize the common idea of what photography was and at the same time be appealing to both laymen and professionals. As inspiration I had watched a short, aesthetic movie by Alex Roman, The Third & The Seventh made completely by CGI. I decided to photograph the Sinar F2 in an architectural aesthetic environment with the same feel and mood as my inspiration video. I also wanted the Sinar to be as live like as possible, almost like this curious Wall-E character from Disney.

My first goal was to find a suited location. Since I’ve been studying at NTNU Gløshaugen for six years, and had photographed the Realfagsbygget as an earlier assignment at school, it didn’t take me long to decide upon using that location as my backdrop again. I had called NTNU and made a deal with them it was okay for me to do photography there the same day upon they made it clear that no students were allowed to be photographed
With some help from my assistant Sascha Njaa we dragged the big camera to the location started shooting. The Sinar F2 is made up by four basic parts, a front end where the lens, shutter and aperture is attached, a back end where the film holder and film and focus screen is mounted, in between them a bellow and everything sits on a rod clamped to a tripod. This bellow is easily bent into different angles making the camera look like it had a neck and a face.

One of the challenges I meet was the rule that NTNU made, no students in any photo, since it was in the after noon and people walked in between classes I had to make them disappear in my shoots. One technique is to shoot the same frame several times and later clone the people out of the frame. But since I didn’t want the scene to be completely vacant I decided to go for another solution, slow shutter.
By reducing the shutter speed, stepping down the ISO speed and closing the aperture, I was able to have a decent exposure. The camera that was on an tripod and the surroundings that didn’t move was frozen in the shot, people moving around was turning up transparent silhouettes. Experimenting with different shutter speeds you can achieve the same effect. A helpful gadget if you don’t have a lens with a small enough aperture is to buy a ND-filter which works as sun glasses for your lens and gives you a slower shutter without overexposing the frame on bright days.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Photographing the Sinar - Realfagsbygget, NTNU Gløshaugen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Photographing the Sinar - Realfagsbygget, NTNU Gløshaugen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Photographing the Sinar - Realfagsbygget, NTNU Gløshaugen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Photographing the Sinar - Realfagsbygget, NTNU Gløshaugen

The Sinar F2 on location. This is the last part of my series with the camera, both in studio and location for now. The series was taken during the photo marathon we had at school.

Photographing for Hipster.no

Tonight I am hitting the cinema to watch Tron: Legacy with my friend Sascha Njaa before visiting Kos Bar&Lounge at 00:00 and Vega Club at 01:00. Dress up, put on the happy face and get photographed.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Photographing the Sinar - Studio

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Photographing the Sinar - Studio

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Photographing the Sinar - Studio

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Photographing the Sinar - Studio

This morning we had the last evaluation of the last assignment of this photo marathon going on for three weeks. I these are the studio shots that i picked out last night. There are four more photos from NTNU from this series. All the studio pictures are taken in the studio with natural lighting with a long shutter and small aperture.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar - Large Format Camera

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar - Large Format Camera

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar - Large Format Camera

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar - Large Format Camera

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar - Large Format Camera

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar - Large Format Camera

Since last post much has happen on the project, “Give Wall-E Life- to Sinar”,I am working on. I’ve done post production on fourteen photos, both studio / product done Wednesday afternoon and the shots on location I did yesterday. I went for the cool, blue style I almost always use on my photos. They are all in black and white, and high contrast. Here are six images that didn’t make it for the final selection of eight images. Thank you Sascha and Mimoza for helping me picking out the best photos. I trust you guys made the right choices.

The six reasons these pictures weren’t included in the last package.

Image one was looking a bit to similar to the one I chose for the first image in the series. Image two you needed to have the reference to Wall-E to really understand the picture. Three and four was too similar to each other, they were also a bit boring comparing to the eight I have picked for the finals. Number five was too heavy with its whole, massive dark space. I like the rhyme and repetition and the soft lighting, but it didn’t cross the finish line. The Last and sixth picture looks just like a cropped image of the main, opening picture of my series.

Behind the photo

The location shots are taken at Realfagsbygget at NTNU Gløshaugen, the product photos are taken in studio. All with natural lighting and a shutter of at least one second. I believe the ISO to be about 800 on the studio-shots and 200 on location. The aperture varies between f/2, f/16, f/22 and even f/32 on some pictures. Everything is take with a tripod attached to get the really long exposures.

I will try to publish the final series during noon tomorrow if I manage staying awake. In about five hours I will have the final evaluation of this photo marathon, hoping to get some sleep now.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar - Large Format Camera

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sinar - Large Format Camera

The Sinar large format camera is a swiss made camera that we use at school, mainly for architecture photography during the spring on the second semester. It’s large format and its tilt-shift capabilities makes it the number one choice when it comes to photographing architecture. Since this camera and format is such a large part of the photographic history I wanted to portray it in its right environment, modern architecture, at NTNU Gløshaugen and Realfagsbygget. In one of our first assignments in the architecture course, we photograph this building and many photographers will recognize this as they enter the school. One of the reasons that I didn’t shoot a random fashion portrait of a person is that if my series, or picture, is to be selected, it is going to hang on one of the main walls of the school for quite a time and I am afraid that people will get quite tired of looking at the same face day in and day out.

The next 12 hours

Yesterday I photographed the Sinar in studio, found some interesting angles and details. Today, in company of Sascha Njaa, I went to NTNU Gløshaugen with the Sinar, photographed some architecture photos with the Sinar as my model. I was trying to give the Sinar some kind of sould giving the feeling that the Sinar was exploring Gløshaugen more than photographing it. Now I have a long night in front of me. First off is choosing what pictures I want to have in my series, then post production, and then again selecting further more and at last mounting the whole series on another picture of the wall where they are going to hang.
By the time I’m done with all this, I am going to have my breakfast, head for school and have my evaluation at 9:30 am. Wish me good luck!

From Alex Roman

The Architecture through the
cinematographic lens.
The Visual fusion between the third
and the seventh arts

The brief description defines
the declaration of
aesthetic principles that underlines
the “Third&Seventh” project:

A FULL-CG animated piece that tries
to illustrate architecture art
across a photographic point of view
where main subjects
are already-built spaces.

My next assignment is a project we got about two days to finish in our photo marathon. The description is taking a photo or a series of photos that are going to decorate the main wall on our school. It was going to say something with photo and communication. The first idea that popped up in my head was the “The Third & The Seventh” movie published last year on Vimeo which, in this intro, is an animation that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photohraphic point of view. I am not such a big fan of the Sinar it self, dragging this big, heavy bag around, with only twelve frames of exposure. But how the pictures comes out after first adjusting focus, crop, tilt-shift and such, developing the negative film with the black, recognizable edges around the frame it is really nice. The whole camera is quite simple, two standards, front and back, a lens, a shutter-release, a focus screen and the bellows. All this mounted on a rail clamp which is again mounted on a tripod. It’s basic, quite few things can go wrong if and miss-fires seldom. Great resolution with its 4×5″ or 8×10″ format film, looks mean, purrs like a pussycat.

I shot some product pictures of it today in studio, all natural lighting. I used both a Sigma 70-200 HSM Macro II something and a Nikon Nikkor 105mm with a closeup ring. I wanted to “portray” the Sinar with its masculine and technical looks and also show the simplicity of the mechanics. I am not done doing post production on these pictures, but you can take a look at some old ones I shot with the Sinar large format camera.

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Ralfagsbygget på NTNU Gløshaugen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Ralfagsbygget på NTNU Gløshaugen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Ralfagsbygget på NTNU Gløshaugen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Ralfagsbygget på NTNU Gløshaugen

Tomorrow I’ll head up to NTNU Gløshaugen as this location is an environment with a lot of calmness and an architecture in a very modern style to shoot some photos with the Sinar as the main subject.

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Ralfagsbygget på NTNU Gløshaugen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Ralfagsbygget på NTNU Gløshaugen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Ralfagsbygget på NTNU Gløshaugen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Ralfagsbygget på NTNU Gløshaugen

Forrige uke var jeg på Realfagsbygget, NTNU Gløshaugen og fotograferte arkitektur på storformat (Sinar F2). Tirsdag hadde vi gjennomgang av alle bildene hvor tilbakemeldingen var litt varierende, men ble jevnt over godkjent.
Noe kjedelig lys, men heldigvis snødde det ikke den dagen vi var på opptaket. Tror aldri jeg har opplevd snø i Mai, men denne uka var det litt vel ekstremt. Hadde jeg vært helt sikker på værmeldinga hadde det blitt en ekstra runde med storformaten for å få litt mer kontrast. Gjort er gjort og det er for sent å gjøre noe med det nå.