foto: Bjørn Christiansen, modell: Trine Eide, stylist: Tina Larsen
Starting at Fotofagskolen I was pretty fresh shooting fashion photography. I didn’t have that much experience or “the right” inspirations to build my own shoots. After learning some techniques and leafing through various fashion magazines I got an understanding of what you should do in an editorial series. In spring of my first year, Tina Larsen from fstyle.blogg.no/a> asked me to help her out on her final exam at H2 shooting an avant garde, baroque-inspired fashion series. She showed me some inspirational photos and we discussed what location we should use. Having shot a lot of photos at NTNU Gløshaugen and Hovedbygget, the choice was quite easy. For my inspiration I used Cinderella and the Czech movie Three Wishes for Cinderella (Tri orísky pro Popelku) which in Norwegian tradition is always showing on Christmas eve. Our model was Trine Eide. I called NTNU and asked to use their building for location and got a yes.
Having helping me out as an assistant on this shoot was my friend Sascha Njaa. Before the photo shoot we went to the location places and angles fit for a backdrop. The photos were to be put in Tina’s final portfolio and viewed at a catwalk show the students at H2-Akademiet had put together later that month.
Having found quite a few spots to shoot at the location I was able to shoot a huge variation for the series. This particular photo was shot in a large window facing south, at the opposite side I had my huge bed sheet reflector which gave me enough light to get a decent exposure in the front of the model. Having a stylist doing clothing, hair and make-up doing the styling of your photo shoots helps you a great deal getting the photos you want to shoot. Have common understanding on what your theme and photo style should be. Tina passed her exam and is now working as a hairdresser at Heads Up Hårsalong på Byåsen and a freelance stylist.
Back in 2010 I did my first photo shoot with Unni Lund Olsen, from Trend Models with me on the team I had Tina Larsen, stylist and author of the blog fstyle.blogg.no, and photographer Sascha Njaa. We had planned three looks that for our shots. The first was an avant garde with some space age looking hair and makeup, the second was a high class Max Mara-trench coat look and the last was this one, summer mood with wet hair and kind of neutral makeup. All three locations were close by in my neighborhood and was quite easy to get to.
Korsvika, where this photo is shot, is close by to where I live and I’ve seen this spot several times and wanted to shoot there. It also matched the idea of having a summer look to the series. Shooting in bright, Norwegian summer light can sometimes give you some hard shadows where either the dark areas or the bright areas in your photo either under- or overexpose. As a precaution for this I brought a fairly big white / silver-reflector to the set having Sascha reflecting some of the light back at the model balancing out the darker areas in this particular shot. I am not quite sure if it is the silver or the withe side of the reflector, but by the looks it is the silver side.
A reflector is a cheap and easy tool to bring on to a set varying in sizes and colors with variations from white, gray, silver and gold. You might also have a black sided reflector to block out light spilling on your subject or emphasizing the contrast in your images. I have had my strobist days of making silver and white reflectors with cardboard and aluminum foil and white paper, but found it quite cheap to just look for disks at Ebay. Some may argue that more expensive Lastolite reflectors are better than others, I find it difficult to see the difference between a white bed sheet and an expensive reflector. As a tip I from earlier in my calendar, buy a bed sheet and stretch it across some poles and you have a huge reflector. Another way to make a cheap, big reflector is to buy big Styrofoam board. If you want dual purpose, paint one of the sides black. The larger your reflectors are, the more light they will reflect. This might be one of the widest used reflectors in the photo business, but one of the cons of having a 2x3meter Styrofoam-board is that it is not very portable. If you’d like to have small hot spots reflected you can use a mirror, full length or pocket sized. One of the best investments considering a reflector is asking a friend or colleague helping you out aiming the light at the angle you want instead of fixing them to a stand or whatever is at your hand. Make sure the reflected light does not come from below the model, but at a straight or downward angle. This makes the light more natural.
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, Eileen K. Røst – Fashion Editorial
Cheating photography! It might be that I shoot my self in the leg this time, but photographing many kinds of pictures involves cheating a bit. This might be one of the more simpler way to cheat making something impossible look very natural. First I am going to tell the story behind this picture, then I’ll continue with the technical stuff.
This is a shot I did for my final exam at Norsk Fotofagskole in the spring of 2011 at Øysand in Melhus. The task was to photograph a fashion editorial that had a travel theme. I am a bit of a film geek so I arranged a series based on the story about Bonnie & Clyde doing bank robberies. Though my series was focused a bit more of the fashion-telling.
First of all I needed to find a good location for the shoot. I needed something flat and anonymous with no clear references. Øysand in Melhus is a spot I’ve been doing a lot of my work lately and it kind of fit my idea, with some basic tweaking quite well. Next up was casting models for this shoot. In my whole series I used Kofi G from Trend Models and Eileen Røst who is mainly a hair dresser.
And finally the requisites for the shoot, a gun and a briefcase full of money. It might be that you’ve heard that you shouldn’t counterfeit money, and it’s true. Don’t do it, unless it is just for photo- or video making or other theatrical relations. First of all, I went online and downloaded high resolution images of 1$ bills, made an A4 template with six or eight copies of the dollar-bill image on and printed just one a bunch of copies, cut them out and made bundles of money.
The Second part I did was getting a briefcase that I cold store the fake money and have the model dragging around in my shots. Clas Ohlson had some cheap, but great looking briefcases that fit great. At last I bought two used airsoft guns off an user at Finn.no. All in all the requisites cost around 350NOK (around ). I also had a friend lend me a Porsche completing the idea of having my models traveling.
The day came for my shoot, the sunny weather with harsh shadows I had hoped for never came. Instead it started raining and the set was quite the opposite of what I had planned. When nothing seems to work out as it should go for your second plan. If you don’t have a second plan, make the best out of the main plan.
The last scene in my series I had planned that my female model was escaping from the police and that the briefcase opened and all the money flew off into the air. Since I couldn’t afford renting extras dressed up as police officers I framed my shot as they were about to come into the picture. In real life we didn’t have much wind to play with, my counterfeit money was soaked because of the rain and the two tests we did before this final shot. It was then my assistant Sascha Njaa came into play suggesting that I should take a bunch of shots of the model dropping the case without the money flying, and afterwards shooting some photos of him throwing the money up in the air doing some cutting and pasting in post production. And that is what we finally did.
Shooting double exposures is one way to merging two photos together, another one is to shoot two different shoots and merging them together in post productions. An important thing you need to remember doing these shots is to not move your camera between the shots. The perspective could change and make the second image look weird when combined to the first one.
A little summary of what you should do if you plan a photo shoot is make a plan, make a mood board, find out what you need, what location, what mood, who should be the model and the extras, bring an assistant, bring food, have a plan B, make the best out of it if everything else fails. Cheat. It is a planned scene, it is not documentary showing the real world. If it adds value to your shot, it is worth it. Keep it real or way out there.
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, The Harry Potter-première at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, 2011
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, The Harry Potter-première at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, 2011
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, The Harry Potter-première at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, 2011
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, The Harry Potter-première at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, 2011
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, The Harry Potter-première at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, 2011
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, The Harry Potter-première at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, 2011
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, The Harry Potter-première at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, 2011
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, The Harry Potter-première at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, 2011
Photos from the Harry Potter-première (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) at Nova Kinosenter in Trondheim, July 2011. These photos are just a few out of around 70 I shot of cinema guests having dressed up for the première. The event was arranged by Trondheim Kino with flame blowers, witches brew, a choir singing the Harry Potter-theme and the photo stand where my friend Sascha Njaa and I ran. The best costume were awarded some film effects, a magic wand, a book and a poster, some t-shirts and such. Hope the guests and Harry Potter-fans at the show had a great time watching the première and enjoying the event.
This is the third and last part from my fashion-roadtrip-shoot with Viktoria Konstanse Strand Kvalsvik from Trend Models. A few more days and I have completed two years at Norsk Fotofagskole. The clothes are mainly from MTWTFSS Weekday, Bianco Footwear and BikBok.
I have spent the evening at school printing and preparing three photos for Fokus, the final exhibition on Friday.
This is the second part of the fashion-series I did for my exam at Norsk Fotofagskole. Model is Viktoria Konstanse Strand Kvalsvik from Trend Models in Trondheim. Clothes are mainly borrowed from BikBok at Mercursenteret, but also MTWTFSS Weekday. Shoes are borrowed from Bianco Footwear in Nordre Gate.
FOKUS – Avgangsutstilling NFFS 2011
Fokus - Avgangsutstilling på Norsk Fotofagskole 2011. Ikke glem å kom!
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, models: Eileen Kvåle Røst and Kofi Gyimah
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, models: Eileen Kvåle Røst and Kofi Gyimah
These is some of the photos I shot for my exam at Norsk Fotofagskole with the theme “Road Trip”. Models are Eileen K Røst and Kofi Gyimah. The Porsche Boxter is borrowed from Anders S. Rønningen, Trygg Media. Makeup was done by Anniken Tiset. The location is Øysand in Melhus Kommune, just outside Trondheim.
This is the first part from the fashion series I shot of Viktoria Konstanse Strand Kvalsvik (Trend Models) in Melhus and Skaun. Clothes worn at this shoot was borrowed from BikBok, MTWTFSS Weekday and Bianco Footwear.
FOKUS – Avgangsutstilling NFFS 2011
Fokus is an exhibition of photos shot by second year students at Norsk Fotofagskole as the last part of our exam. Everyone is invited and the show starts at 8 pm Friday the 10th of June at our school, Nedre Ila 39, 7018 Trondheim. Map
Today it is just ten days left until my exam is due, my days are numbered as a student at Norsk Fotofagskole. For the past 20 days I have been photographing fashion, product, architecture, commercial and ads and classical portraits and spent many hours in post production. Tuesday I am doing a re-shoot of the toaster, Wednesday I am photographing food and Thursday till Sunday will be the last days in post production. Today I had a re-shoot of the fashion-task, this time with Viktoria Konstanse Strand Kvalsvik from Trend Models, with clothes and shoes from BikBok, Weekday and Bianco Footwear. Location was Øysand in Melhus and E39 in Skaun, places I’ve been driving by for quite a few times, but never stopped.
The bus shed is right outside Buvika and still in use. The picture is of Viktoria, the model, and my favourite assistant Sascha Njaa.
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, modell: Rachel Nordtømme, makeup and hair: Line Sofie Steinfinsbø
A bit too early after being ill for three days now I shot two fashion series with Rachel Nordtømme and Trine Eide a bit like the ones I shot of Oda Nordheim last Sunday. Today, my makeup artist Line Sofie Steinfinsbø, started with laying makeup and doing Trine’s hair. After a while Rachel arrived and got her hair and makeup done while I was photographing Trine. A helpful Sascha Njaa helped me rig the studio, both setting up the flash heads and meter the light.
Between the takes we got serious and shot some amazing pictures.
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, models: Sascha Njaa and Trine Eide
photo: Sascha Njaa, models: Trine Eide and Bjørn Christiansen
foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Produktfoto av Minttu Black
Da var klokka blitt halv-seks og siste oppgaven i Digital Montasje på Norsk Fotofagskole er endelig i boks. Levering og gjennomgang er klokka 12:30 i formiddag hvor jeg antar vi skal se på alle bildene som er blitt produsert og gå igjennom feil, mangler, tips og triks til forbedring.
Oppgaven
Oppgave B: Flaske i landskap – Alkoholreklame:
Endelig er alkoholreklame tillatt igjen i Norge og det utnytter prodsentene til det fulle med sin nye kampanje.
Di slaø velge en av oppgavene under og lage en quicktime-film som viser fremgangsmåten.
En produsent av brennevin som wodka, whisky, cognac, likør, akkevitt eller lignende vil fremheve sin vakre design, etikett og flaske. De vil fremheve flasken som “en statue” eller skulptur.
I et vakkert landskap har produsenten fått reist en statue av sin flaske. Din oppgave er å skape et vakkert landskapsbilde der denne “statuen” spiller hovedrollen. Velg et landskap og en stil som kler flasken. Her er det ingen krav til personer i bildet og du kan bruke landskapsbilder du allerede har om du vil det.
Når bildet er ferdig skal du produsere en quicktime-film som viser hvordan bildet ble laget. Her må du ta utgangspunkt i layers-filene og jobbe i iphoto. - Jan Christian Sørlie
På grunnlag av dette valgte å fotografere Minttu, som er en av de få tingene jeg drikker av brennevin. I ettertid ble det klart at vi også fikk fotografere ølflasker siden det ikke er noen bytterett på polet. Litt demotivert for oppgaven og ikke helt tilfreds med at jeg måtte etterbehandle bilder i en så stor grad, startet jeg så vidt med å se litt på inspirasjonsbilder på Absolutads.com som er en side med en god del Absolut Vodka-reklamebilder. For en tid tilbake så jeg filmen 2001, en romodysse av Stanley Kubrick fra 1968 og fikk lyst til å gjøre noe lignende med Minttu-flaska mi som den monolitten i filmen.
Søndag stakk Sascha Njaa og jeg på road-trip til Orkdal for å finne fjell og fjorder vi kunne bruke til oppgaven. Sascha på sin side ville fotografere ei Vikingfjord-flaske og så etter både vikinger og fjorder.
Landskapsbildene mine er komponert av hovedsaklig fire bilder, ett fra Skjenaldalen og utløpet til Gangåsvatnet i Orkdal langs Rv714, det andre bildet er fra Knyken Skisenter og det tredje er fra Omnsfjellet, begge plassene også i Orkdal. Det siste er tatt ute på Ladehammeren tidlig sommeren 2010. Bildet av flaska er tatt i studio og lysoppsettet er beskrevet her. Etter første runde i studio trodde jeg at jeg hadde feil vinkel på flaska og måtte fotografere en runde til. Jeg prøvde meg også å fotografere med grønn bakgrunn for å lettere selektere ut ting, men å få den grønne bakgrunnen jevnt lyssatt var vanskeligere enn jeg trodde.
Etter å ha fotografert alt sammen monterte jeg delene sammen og la på en retro-finish på bildet.
I videoen under kan du se ca hele prosessen fra start til slutt:
foto: Bjørn Christiansen, Produktfoto av Minttu Black
Om Minttu
For tiden jobber vi med digital montasje på skolen hvor vi skal lage et reklamebilde av ei flaske med alkoholinnhold i et miljø tilsvarende produktet. Jeg valgte å fotografere likøren Minttu Black mye fordi det, bortsett fra whisky er det eneste brennevinet jeg drikker, og fordi jeg ikke har smakt denne varianten av Minttu. Minttu er produsert i Turku i Finland og er, som navnet tilsier, en likør med en kraftig smak av mint. Første gangen jeg drakk prøvde Minttu var på Himos Festivalen i Jämsa, midt i grønneste Finland sammen med 30 000 finner tilbake i 2005. Minttu kan enten drikkes med isbiter, som shot, blandes i kakao eller iskaffe, gjerne på afterski eller en varm sommerdag.
Nå står det igjen å få montert flasken inn i landskapet jeg har bygd av bilder fra arkivet og fra road-tripen jeg hadde til Orkdal i helga.
Lysoppsettet
Det er flere måter å fotografere glass og flasker med hvit bakgrunn, men hovedelementene man må merke seg er følgende:
Ikke lyssett flaska eller glasset direkte
Glass og gjennomsiktige overflater reflekterer omgivelsene
Glass og gjennomsiktige gjenstander på hvit bakgrunn gjengis best med sorte omgivelser og et lite hvitt område rett bak motivet som er lyssatt
Glass og gjennomsiktige gjenstander på svart bakgrunn gjengis best i hvite omgivelser hvor det hvite rundt er lyssatt og det bare er et lite sort område i bakkant av glasset.
Lysoppsett for flaske på hvit bakgrunn
Skissen beskriver hvordan jeg har lyssatt Minttu-flasken min, det kan sikkert gjøres på andre måter og gjøres bedre, men i denne sammenhengen fungerte denne lyssettinga fint for meg. Først plasserte jeg en sort, blank overflate på to tre-bukker, plasserte flasken ytterst og bakerst på platen. Deretter bygde jeg inn flaska med to sorte isoporplater på hver side og dro ned en hvit bakgrunn. Deretter satte jeg opp en blits med låvedører for å flagge ut eventuelle strølys og lyssatte bakgrunnen. Målte lyset til å være f/16.5 på bakgrunnen for å få den overeksponert og helt hvit for at jeg lettere kunne klippe ut flasken etterpå. Dette resulterte i at flasken fikk den sorte tegningen rundt kantene, men at etiketten på flaska var relativt mørk. Deretter satte jeg opp en softboks helt bakerst i rommet og vinklet den mot veggen. Målte lyset til å være f/16 på forsiden av flaska som igjen skulle gi tegning i detaljene i forgrunn av flaska. I tillegg til å få tegning i etiketten på flaska fikk jeg også en fin refleks som går igjennom korka og ned for å gi et inntrykk av at flasken faktisk er rund i toppen. Grunnen til at underlaget ikke blir svart er fordi flaten er helt blank og reflekterer lyset som treffer bakgrunnen min og inn i kameraet. Siden plata er helt svart vil jeg miste en liten stopp om vinkelen ikke er helt rett. Justerer jeg kamerastandpunktet høyere vil mer lys fra bakgrunnen reflekteres ned i bordet og opp i objektivet mitt, som igjen gjør at flaska “svever” i bildet.
I går hadde vi introduksjon i portrettfotografering på skolen hvor vi så på noen eksempelbilder og etterpå hadde en liten workshop hvor vi fotograferte en klassekamerat med relativt frie tøyler. Etterpå gikk vi igjennom bildene vi hadde tatt i plenum og fikk kritikk på ting som kunne blitt gjort bedre, annerledes og det som var bra. Det var gjennomgående triste studenter i klassen og noen utskudd. Serien min av Sascha Njaa ble kanskje en smule overdrevet tidlig 90-talls Orbit-reklame med skateboard og tækky lyssetting.
Kursholder i portrettkurset er Eir-Jørgen Bue som har lenge jobbet som Studio G-fotograf og blitt kåret til Årets portrettfotograf.
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!
