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

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

Lyrics from an old hit by Coolio, Gangsta’s Paradise, which was a soundtrack for Dangerous Minds back in 1995. Back then I didn’t really know what the lyrics meant, but something was really going on during the shoot with Kim van Tuijl. These are the last shots from this series. Helping out on the set was Ryanne Sambros working for Episode, a second hand store in Copenhagen. Both girls are originally from the Netherlands, had moved to Denmark to study and work. Kim is represented by the model agency CPHWOLVES. Outfits aren’t my specialty, but I know what I like once I see it. The Deutche Bahn railway hat for instance was spot on cool and made this outfit.

The camera setup for these shots are quite easy. I used a Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/1.4G paired with my Nikon D800. I wanted Kim, the model to have a dark front with a lot of back light to sculpt her body shape with a more silhouetty style rather than a direct flash. I don’t like revealing to much of the background and therefore shot most of the photos at a wide open aperture from f/1.4 to f/2.0 and thats about it.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Birkelund

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Birkelund

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Birkelund

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Birkelund

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Birkelund

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Birkelund

Last week I did a test with Camilla B for Trend Models as a part of a model scouting I did. Here these are some of the shots I did of her.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

When I was in Denmark covering the Copenhagen Fashion Week 2013, I also did some model tests, here are some more shots of Kim van Tuijl, a Dutch model currently living in Denmark and represented by CPHWolves”>. Styling at this shoot was Ryanne Sambros.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Katarina Fossum

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Katarina Fossum

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Katarina Fossum

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Katarina Fossum

Here are some photos of Katarina Fossum from a model test I did with her recently. With her cool tattoos and funky hair her style is rock-chic-ish. These shots are from the first out of three outfits we tested with.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

Here are some studio shots of Eva-Marie from Trend Models.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kofi Gyimah

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kofi Gyimah

This Easter, instead of doing the traditionally Norwegian stuff, head into the mountains for on a hut or a cabbin and do cross country skiing for a whole week, eating candy, eggs and lamb. Instead I had two photo shoots, one with Kofi Gyimah and another one with Camilla Devik, both models from Trend Models. These two first shots I’m presenting are from the shoot with Kofi.
I got some questions about the expressions of my models, why do they always look miserable, unhappy, angry and so on, and are never smiling and inviting. Since I have a background from school photography, both shooting portraits and group-pictures for Fovea AS and Iris Skolefoto for a few years I have grown a bit tired of the always-happy-portrait. You can always make someone smile by doing stupid things, telling jokes or just ask the models to be a bit happy getting a little grin on their face. It is fairly easy, you just need to know the technique which you might learn from experience. It is easy, but getting a model to express other feelings than just happiness you need to communicate that in a right way so that he or she gets what you are thinking of. There are a lot of techniques in getting the right expression and how you get there is something you’ll need to figure out for yourself. A tip can be to show the models the expressions, either by photo or video or doing them yourself.

Here are some more photos of Kofi:

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

Having worked all night finishing the Orega-project I did a little photo shoot with fashion model Eva Marie Frisnes from Trend Models and her portfolio. This is just one portrait I just finished up before I go to bed for some hours of sleep. The portrait is shot with natural light from windows facing north west giving quite soft shadows and even lit face.

UPDATE: Check out Eva Marie’s blogg: fashionhangover.blogg.no

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Elise Strømberg Mærlie

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Elise Strømberg Mærlie

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Elise Strømberg Mærlie

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Elise Strømberg Mærlie

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Elise Strømberg Mærlie

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Elise Strømberg Mærlie

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Elise Strømberg Mærlie

A few weeks ago I did a model test with actress Elise Strømberg Mærlie for Trend Models. Here are some mixed shots from the test, both natural lighting and a on camera speedlight flash unit. The model test was just a warm up for the shoot we had the day after, to see how Elise did in front of the camera. For a first-timer doing this type of work in front of a camera, I was quite satisfied. Gry Saether at Trend Models have already decided to represent Elise and is now listed under new faces on their web-page. She’ll probably to reach far with a little hard work.

This week I have had a few photo shoots portraying a wide aspect of different people, doing a business editorial / documentary for Orega and Norservice. The shots will be published in a advertising supplement in the local newspaper Adresseavisen later this month and is of kind of the same work I did last autumn, Editorial for Norservice. These type of jobs are quite different from the fashion work I do for i.e. RunwayPassport, in style, preparations and expression, but the similarities are much the same, meeting people and making them look as good as possible.

Another project I am currently working on is a short presentation for NTNUi-Langrenn, the university sports club for cross country skiing and their SL2013-competition in the town center last Saturday.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Ann-Helen Johnsen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Ann-Helen Johnsen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Ann-Helen Johnsen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Ann-Helen Johnsen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Ann-Helen Johnsen

Last Saturday I did a model test with Ann-Helen Johnsen in studio. It was a low budget shoot as most of the other series of this type with the speedlight attached to the camera with the model up against a white wall creating sharp shadows. I first shot some photos of Ann-Helen at a runway show at Solsiden last autumn and where she was showing clothes from H&M and I decided to do this test shoot with her.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kim van Tuijl

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 Denmark covering the Copenhagen Fashion Week A/W2013 I did some model testing. These shots are from the lingerie / fashion photo shoot I had with Kim van Tuijl from CPHWOLVES. Make-up and styling was done by Ryanne Sambros with clothes from Episode. Equipment I used beside my camera was a big madras with a white bed sheet as a reflector to lighten the darker areas.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Michaela Theibel

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Michaela Theibel

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Michaela Theibel

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Michaela Theibel

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Michaela Theibel

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Michaela Theibel

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Michaela Theibel

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Michaela Theibel

After the Copenhagen Fashion Week I had decided to stay for a few more days to do some model testings before I left for Trondheim. I had made a few plans with a few models from different agencies and freelancers to do some shots. The pictures from this fashion photo shoot was of model Michaela Theibel with the help of makeup artist Louise Musse Christensen. As most of the testings I did, the location were just the models apartment being creative to find angles and building a slight liable story to the series. Since this was an abroad job, I didn’t have much photo equipment with me, no fancy light kits, just my lenses and a Nikon SB-900 speedlight.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Nicole Sunde

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Nicole Sunde

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Nicole Sunde

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Nicole Sunde

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Nicole Sunde

In the beginning of January this year I shot a small series of Nicole Sunde for Tremd Models. It was a bit cold that morning and as you can see from the shots, the outfits that the model wore weren’t that warm. We used Mercur Senteret as a base where we could change clothes, take short to warm up the model with hot chocolate and evaluate what we had shot.
With me on location I had photographer Lisbeth Vorren to help me out meeter the light, doing the reflector and wind works and helping out with the ideas. Check out her amazing work at www.fotografvorren.com. The whole shoot was a bit relaxed and not stressed. The only thing we had to consider was that the light was varying and fading fast as the clock passed noon. After the first round I found out that I had shot just on the small JPG-setting, I might have flicked the quality switch on my camera while I was trying to change the ISO-speed. It might be a great tip to always check what quality you are shooting at even though you are sure you are shooting RAW.
Unlike the previous three series I published of Eva-Marie Frisnes, Rebecca Løckra and Maren Elise Aasen, this series is just natural lit with the help of just one, big, white reflector.

Hope you enjoy this series!

Facebook Page

As a little extra for my five year anniversary I published my own facebook-page, if you like, please do follow me on www.facebook.com/FotografTrondheim. It hasn’t been thought through very well, but judging by the trend I will publish some of my shots on the page and you can comment back more easily than on just my blog.

What’s the plan

This weekend I plan to continue working with TEMPO shooting documentary and at a concert they are playing at Trondheim Calling. Saturday I am shooting a portrait series and a dance event (Dans o’hoi! at Olavskvartalet and finally a bridal show at Britannia on Sunday. Monday I am traveling to Copenhagen to shoot Copenhagen Fashion Week for Runway Passport and doing some model tests with local models.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

Second part from my photo shoot with Eva-Marie Frisnes (Trend Models). I am still working with the direct flash styled photos. It is easy and concentrates more of what is in the photo, the subject, rather than setting a mood with a location.
The settings I usually use in these types of shots are a 50mm lens at a f-stop around 4, an ISO-speed at 100ISO and a shutter above 1/125. The most important part of setting the shutter speed is to block the ambient light leaving just the flash gun to freeze the photo. You can the built-in pop-up flash on your camera, or a speedlight. In my case I used a SB-900 mounted on a flash bracket adjusting it to be as close to the lens as possible. This gives you almost no shadow behind the model both in portrait and landscape mode. Using the pop-up flash the light source stands a bit off-set from the lens giving a slightly larger shadow. To get the most out of the flash I varied the speedlight to fire at 1/8 to 1/16 of full power, and also used the i-TTL-funciton. Shooting the documentary for Tempo and their release concert, I used just the pop-up flash on my camera to light the scenes. As with the shots of Eva-Marie, this gives the images a bit more raw feel than if I had lit every scene with a flash head or just used the ambient light.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Tempo - Slippfest på Orklapøbben

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Caroline Foldager

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Caroline Foldager

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Caroline Foldager

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Caroline Foldager

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Caroline Foldager

Back in 2011 I did a whole series of model test in Denmark for ModelBooking at Yellow Cock Studio. Helping me out on this photo shoots was stylist and model Mie Betzer. We had decided to give the models who we shot a set of different look, from everyday casual to a bit more high fashion. These are some of the shots I did of Caroline Foldager.
I believe Caroline has recently change bureau to Le Management.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Eva Marie Frisnes

This week I’ve been photographing two series, one of Rebecca Løckra and another one of Eva-Marie Frisnes. Actually, I did the two shoots simultaneously so they turned out much the same, technical speaking. During the winter time there isn’t many outdoor locations suitable for photographing, if you are a kind of a sissy handling the weather that good. Also it has been shifting a lot so rain and snow might have become an issue if I were to shoot outdoors. Scouting and making appointments with the owners at indoor locations takes too much time and renting a studio is sometimes expensive if you are to do a whole day of shooting. A white wall indoors and a a on-camera flash usually gets the job done. It might be that I’ll consider an outdoor series next time. Here are some of the shots of Eva-Marie. Both models are represented by Trend Models.