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.
Before Christmas last year I shot a CD-cover and PR-photos for the singer Lisa Winsjansen Restad who is a child star known from the Norwegian Melodi Grand Prix Jr. She is releasing a new album soon targeted for the younger audience. Fosna Folket, a local news paper published a story of her both on-line and in their hard copy news paper.
Yet another beautiful model called Elise I’ve shoot during the past weeks. This is more the private types of portraits I do. Using only existing lighting and only Elise’s apartment as a location I found the series turning out quite good. The model was relaxed and we had an informal atmosphere during the shoot that gave the natural feel of these portraits.
Using three types of lenses, the 35mm f/1.4G, 50mm f/1.4D and 70-200mm f/2.8 gave the shallow depth of field shooting at a wide aperture, but I think I need to change out the 50mm f/1.4D anytime soon. It tends to back focus a few millimeters and the sweet spot is way of. I don’t really know if it is because of my D800, the lens it self or if it has been dropped to many times during the five years I’ve owned it.
It is Christmas eve, snow outside and the earth is still functioning as before the planned apocalypse the 21st of December 2012. I have been through 24 of my shots the past five or six years. It might not be the best work I’ve done, but I hope it might give you an idea of how much work you must go through in making a shot that stands out from the rest. I hope you also have learned some basic techniques and picked up some tips on how to do a photo shoot in form of planning location, selecting models, giving your shots a story with the light setup and the camera techniques you use.
This is the last photo I will review in my advent calendar of 2012. It is a shot that might be a bit cliché with a cliché story behind, but I like it very much and it gives me a feeling that I did what I was suppose to as a human being. Having reviewed another shot from my trip down to Morocco, this was shoot in Marrakesh. Pre story; in the winter 2011 I went on a field trip with my class from school to Morocco, staying in Marrakesh for four or five days to do a photo documentary of life inside of the Medina, old town. Then continuing to Essaouira for a few days just relaxing.
This was the last day before leaving Marrakesh, I had almost a complete series with both group portraits, action documentary shots of people traveling, intimate portraits, street photography and overview of everyday life, but was missing “the one” portrait everybody shoots in this documentary class; a portrait of an old, sad, poor man with prune skin and no teeth. I’ve been wandering around town for some days looking for the perfect motive, but didn’t really find what I was looking for until this last day. In a corner of a small square he sat leaned against a wall not doing anything, but watching as people passed by doing their everyday things. I made eye contact and lifted the camera and looked at him, he nodded and I approached him. As a norm here you pay your subjects a little fee to have their photo taken, this man had hoped to get some money for having his portrait taken. Another man shouted at me as I approached the beggar. In poor English he made clear that I needed to pay him in order to have a shot of the poor man. I payed and as I was preparing my camera, two younger boys took position on each side of me, I didn’t bother with them at first. When I was done photographing the beggar, one of the boys told me in a strict tone; You need to pay the beggar, twice the amount I payed the other man watching over him. Since it wasn’t such a big deal for me I gladly payed up and left the whole situation. Just before turning the corner walking towards the hotel I turned around to see if the beggar was okay. It was then I noticed the two boys hitting him and grabbing the money I just gave him and ran of. I got a bit angry and was about to run after the two boys, but in the back of my head many scenarios played quickly through my head; one ended with me in a pool of blood in an ally.
I decided to take a stroll around the block and come back sneaking up to the beggar to see if he was all right. I sat down next to him. He was crying. I felt bad to have put him in this situation. I looked around and in secret gave him the last of my change I had with, not much, but I believe twice the amount the boys ran of with. He smiled briefly and I shot this portrait of him. Leaving in a quick manner I crossed the square and sat down on a bench opposite of where the beggar sat. I watched him for a while in case the boys or other bullies came back. They didn’t.
Photographing portraits is what I have been doing most my time as a professional photographer. I started working in Fovea Skolefoto as a school portrait photographer also photographing kids in kinder garden all across the country. For two seasons I have been doing the same type of photography for a Trondheim based business called Iris Skolefoto. All this time I’ve doing portraits haven’t helped me gained technical experience, but rather experience communicating with the people I have been photographing. Learning different persuasion techniques for getting the facial expressions that I wanted to get, mostly smiling. You meet a lot of different people on the road, from the ones who are so shy wishing for a lightning to strike to those who can’t wait till it is their turn in front of the camera.
As you might have figured out, this is also a photo, a portrait, I shot during my years at Norsk Fotofagskole. This time the assignment was to make a CD-cover for a real or fictional band. And realistic enough, that is some of the projects I am working on today. The band I shot is called Hell Is Repetition. What my plan was was to photograph both portraits and some shots of the band together, the usual stuff you see.
A huge inspiration source for me and this particular shot was Richard Avedon, who you can read more about on his web page www.richardavedon.com. One of his techniques on photographing portraits was to have a big white sheet hung up in the shade and photograph them as they were right in front of it. This gave you plain, white backdrop which gave the subject the entire focus. Much like you see in family portraits and such today. I decided to go for this technique, bought a huge bed sheet and stretched it between two light stands and shot six portraits, two of each band member.
Inspiration is a good source for great ideas. Find some favorite photographers, try to make out what appeals to you in their work and try to replicate. Don’t do a blueprint of what they are doing but add some personal touches. My Richard Avedon-setup was quite cheap, you don’t really need light stands, but you can always tape the bed sheet to the wall.
Eva-Marie Frisnes in black and white. Some shots I did earlier this autumn of Eva-Marie from Trend Models. These are some of the first shot I had with my Nikon D800.
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!
Nine models, two make-up artists, three intensive days in the facilities of Yellow Cock Studio has produced a lot of pictures. I have learned a lot, the models are guaranteed to have done weird things. This is a little collection of photos that were taken during the model testing for Modelbureauet Modelbooking. Sunday is my last day of testing here in Denmark before I go back to Norway to celebrate Christmas Holiday.
Here are two portraits, one of Augustine Tino Asenjo and one of Mehdi Hassan. The portraits are taken in conjunction with model testing for Trend Models and is made of Dora in Trondheim.
Tomorrow I have two male fashion photo shoots, this time for Modelbureauet Modelbooking. The test will take place in the studios of Yellow Cock Studio and stylist is Anja Aarestrup Lund from the agency. I am looking forward to work inside a studio again, it has been a while.
Malene Micha Juhl is mainly a Hair and Make-up Artist, but desided to have some portraits taken of her while we were shooting for model tests of Jennifer Hansen for Modelbureauet Modelbooking at Skyderiet.dk, for portfolio use. She has done a lot of fabulous work for different photographers. Check out her website www.malenemicha.com.
Here is the second batch of the photos I shot of Karoline Holand Fosby last weekend. Enjoy!
Tomorrow I am driving to Fosen Videregående Skole in Bjugn Kommune to shoot the second year students and on Wednesday I am extending my road-trip to Frøya Videregående to shoot around eight group photos. Looking forward to be on the road again.
Last weekend I photographed Karoline Holand Fosby at the abandoned gas station at Heimdal. Karoline works as an instructor at Elixia in Trondheim and studies to become a teacher. Here are two photos from the shoot. Styling, hair and make-up was done by Karoline herself.
Today I had some spare time at the school I am photographing, to be precise, 2 hours. After eating lunch, reading various online newspapers, taking the extra pictures to school and read your papers again, I connected my mouse to the laptop, which we use as a capture device when we photograph the students, and used it as a remote trigger to the camera. There is a reason that I feel comfortable behind the camera than in front. The portraits I am photographing comes out way better than this one.
Here are two portraits I shot of Kristine Hove Røsok in April this year. The idea behind the pictures are not very deep, I would mainly do something I usually used to do, paint the model black. The light is relatively flat to give the smoothest possible background and to bring in the most detail where it is black, that is, most of the picture. It is these situations I’m glad I’m standing on the back of the camera, considering that Christine had to go through the whole city after we were done. I can not recall, but I think she had washed off most of the black paint before she left.
Studio lighting diagram from the shoot with Kristine Hove Røsok
As you may see in the pictures is the main light is positioned in the opposite angle than the light diagram I have attached the thread. I also photographed at an aperture f/6.3 so the light measurements contained in the diagram is also incorrect. The reason is that the chart is copied and reused from a previous shoot with Marion Dyrvik Homlong (2010) where I used almost the same set-up. However, the diagram can be used as a kind of recipe to replicate the images. Hope it comes in handy.
Liv-Miriam Nordtømme and Bjørn Christiansen, photo: Vegard T. Blakstad
After work today I drove with my boss to Kristiansten Festning and met Liv-Miriam Nordtømme, the author of fysionett.blogg.no. Here we did a photo shoot and a recording of some video clips Liv-Miriam is going to use on her blog demonstrating simple and easy home exercises. Vegard Blakstad, my boss, and the photographer behind this image served as assistant during the shot handing me the lenses and made sure that the light was perfectly reflected on the face of Liv-Miriam. Photos and film from the recording comes during the week.
As you can see in the image of Liv-Miriam and me, so I use my tripod shoulder rig in order to stabilize the images as much as possible. It’s better than to shoot only handheld. Canon 5D MkII, I borrowed from my tenant, Charlotte Støle, who is also a photographer.
Hi and welcome to my blog / portfolio. My name is Bjørn Christiansen I am a 29 year old and live in Trondheim where I currently I work as a freelance photographer shooting fashion, commercial, documentary and portraits. Enjoy my site!
