BJØRN CHRISTIANSEN | Photographer

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Kung Fu with Kristian Vintervoll and Roy Lyngstad

This is another photo from the years at Norsk Fotofagskole. As one of the first assignments we got during the two years, we had to do a sports portrait whatever style we wanted to do. At that time my comfort zone was flash photography lighting scenes and a lot of dramaturgy. I might have changed my style a bit since then, but still I really like to do these kind of shots the strobist way.
When I first got the assignment I had an idea of photographing students at my gym (TKBK), but I figured I should take it a step further and really go for martial arts with larger and more artistic movements other than just the raw punches that a kick boxer serve. I had also just seen “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”, “House of Flying Daggers” and “Kung Fu Panda” that gave me some ideas on how my shot should look like. The only thing that concerned me a bit was that we did not have any bamboo forests or steep mountain sides with a Buddhist monastery on top. The closest I could think of was Kristiansten festning, a fortress from 1685 which is located ontop of a hill overlooking the town center of Trondheim. That would do for this shoot.
Fortunately I knew there was a kung fu gym in town and luckily I knew one of the students there, Kristian Vintervoll, who I asked to do this shoot for with me. He agreed and we meet the following day at the location. He had brought his friend a bag with their pj’s, weapons and his friend Roy Lyngstad. While I was rigging my light I asked them to do their warm up routine so that I get some ideas on what they were able to do and what not, and how I was to compose the shot. The weather forecast that day stated that we should expect thunder and lighting by night fall, giving the skies this perfect, dramatic looking backdrop I had hoped for. We did some shots with the guys sparring, doing high jumps with kicks and other cool stuff, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I asked them to do some poses like you see on the movie posters, they got the idea of what I was looking and we ended up with this shot.

The lighting setup in this photo I had two flashes on each side of the guys as a kicker, rim light or high light, to separate them from the background. A third flash was mounted on the hot shoe on my camera pointing directly at them. This is what I call an almost fail safe light setup. What I did was to meeter the ambient light and got probably a reading around f/8 at 1/125s on ISO400. The next thing was to set my separation lights to expose two stops above the ambient light, and the key light / main light to expose one stop above the ambient light. This darkens the ambient light and exposes the subject properly. The side lights should expose at f/16 at 1/125s on ISO400, and the main light should be f/8 at 1/125s on ISO400. Be sure to just have enough distance on the light on each side and have the same power output so they expose the separation light equally. I fitted white shoot through umbrellas to the separation light to make the light source larger wrapping the light around the subjects with a smoother grading.

When you are photographing, have a plan, depend on a bit of luck as I did with the weather, know your gear. If you don’t have a light meeter you can always take test shots and walk each light down to a decent exposure. I use a light meeter because it is a lot faster than taking one shot at a time adjusting the power output on each flash before testing another one. One of the reasons I started working with Nikon cameras was because of the Creative Light System (CLS) where you can command all flashes on camera instead of having to go to each speedlight and adjusting the output. Using speedlights instead of studio strobes you can be very mobile doing such shoots at remote locations without carrying around heavy equipment and gear. The downsides are that you don’t have any modeling light to see how the image will turn out. To use this system you need to have some insight on how light works and what each setting does. Know your tools. If you can’t afford high end flash units there is always cheaper stuff with less functionality at ebay. The gear I used on this particular shot was 1x Nikon D800 with Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5 – 5.6, 2x Nikon SB-900, 2x white 80″ truculent umbrellas with mounts and 2x light stands.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Rachel Nordtømme - Track running at Øya in Trondheim

Here is a picture of Rachel Nordtømme I photographed early spring. The image is going to be used as a huge sponsor sticker on her car or something like that. The picture was taken on the track at Øya in Trondheim. The ambient light was still a little too bright for me to get to freezeher properly at the moment so you can see some movement by her feet, but it’s like that when you work under pressure and need to get a job done. The image isa also illuminated with three Nikon SB-900 Speedlight flash units and a Elinchrom Ranger. At the shoot I brought along Oscar Stoltenberg Johansen and Ingrid Marie Nymoen as assistant photographers helping me out setting the light properly.

Rachel was unfortunately injured during a competition this summer, but is now back on his feet ready to dance her way to fame in the TV-show “Skal vi Danse” running on Norwegian TV2, hopefully all autumn.

Today is my last day in Mo i Rana for this time. I’ve been here since Sunday night and finished the job for three o’clock before I turn my nose north to Bodø and an approximately four-hour drive over the mountain. I will be in Bodø just a day before I travel by plane back to Trondheim and home again to relax this weekend with lots of photo shoots with some other models than students to have a photo on the school’s certificate.

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.

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, modeller: Ulrikke S, Susann Westermann og Kristian Vintervoll, sminke: Tina Larsen og Siri Myran (H2)

I dag hadde vi evaluering av oppgaven vår, Blits på location, som gitt bedre enn forventet. God kritikk og tilbakemelding på besvarelsen min, så nå er jeg kjempeglad.
Om noen er interesserte har Bjørn Tore Økland lagt ut noen ‘bak-opptaket’-bilder her .

Lysoppsett

Her er en røff skisse over hvordan lysoppsettet mitt var:

Lysoppsett til opptaket

Som dere ser har jeg brukt 3 stk. Nikon SB-900 hvor to er plassert bak og inn mot situasjonen med hvite, reflekterende paraplyer, mens en er plassert ca 45 grader ut fra siden og inn mot midten med en hvit ‘shoot-through’ paraply. Alle Nikon SB-900 blitsene er kjørt på samme kanal og full styrke. Det er også plassert en SB-600 i bilen, bak på ryggen til passasjersetet pekende fremover for å skape en illusjon av at lyset forfra er større og for å gi frontruta på bilen den urene og skitne teksturen. Jeg prøvde først med to Nikon SB-600 blitser i bilen, men både det at modellene foran bilen og mangel på overeksponering i frontruta gjorde at jeg valgte å bruke den andre Nikon SB-600 blitsen pekende mot en reflektor på høyresiden for å få mer fyll-lys på modellene. Disse to blitsene gikk av på ca 1/2 til 1/4 styrke.
Det ambiente lyset på settet ble målt inn til f/3.0 og blitslyset hadde en gjennomsnittsmåling på f/4.5 til f/5.6, noe som gjorde at jeg fikk senket det ambiente lyset betraktelig.

Teknikk

I forberedelsesfasen hadde jeg fått snakket litt med Ulrikke S for å gi henne et lite bilde på hvordan jeg ville at uttrykket i bildet skulle være, hvilken rolle hun spilte i bildet og hva hun skulle gjøre. I tillegg til dette sendte jeg også ut moodboarden og skisser til alle som skulle delta på opptaket, hovedsaklig modeller og stylister. Dessverre rakk jeg ikke forberede Susann Westermann så veldig mye på opptaket, men på tross fikk jeg det uttrykket jeg var ute etter. Kristian Vintervoll hadde en lett rolle som død hunk og jeg tenkte som så at jeg kunne instruere han, der og da, på settet.
Jeg hadde i tankene å kjøre litt vågalt, overpompøs sminke på begge sykepleierne, men ombestemte meg i siste liten og fikk Tina Larsen og Siri Myran til å legge lett sminke, knallrøde lepper og lyse opp huden. Hunken min hadde jeg egentlig ikke noen konkret plan om, men så for meg at han hadde fått hodeskader etter å ha blitt påkjørt, samt indre blødninger.
Vi startet å rigge settet rundt fire, akkurat passe tid til at nok publikum og biler passerte settet. Godt var det å ha med tre assistenter som passet på å få flyttet den venstre blits-lampa frem og tilbake for å slippe forbi trafikken. Kvart over fire var jeg ferdig å måle inn lys og sette opp blitser, og ti over halv fem var vi som sagt ferdig å skyte.
Jeg ville gi bildet mitt et lite film noir-preg for å gi det, i tillegg til sexy sykepleiere i latexuniformer, enda mer David Lachapelle-preg. Det skulle skje noe i det bildet ble tatt, derfor instruerte jeg Ulrikke til å sprette ut og inn av bilens passasjerside med kofferten i hånda, mens hun kikker rått, tøsete på Susann. Noe jeg ser i ettertid er at Susann kanskje burde hatt blikket mot Ulrikke for å få film noir-preget fullbyrdet.
Jeg er ikke helt sikker selv enda om star-light-filteret jeg monterte på objektivet var en veldig god idé eller ikke. De lyse partiene i bildet har en stjernelignende refleksjon som er et resultat av stjerne-filteret. For de som skulle være interessert i et slikt filter, fås det kjøpt hos Kaffebrus med varierende pris på bakgrunn av filterdiameteren (71,- for 49mm – 150,- for 77mm)

Etterbehandling

Etterbehandlingen av bildet er ganske lett. Jeg har fjernet det ene beinet fra det høyre blits-stativet som snek seg med på bildet. Justert opp litt kontraster, lagt inn ny himmel, desaturert (dempet farger) i partier som ikke er viktige i bildet, lagt på litt ekstra blod her og der og noen ekstra småting for å få en litt malt Dave Hill-effekt på bildet.

Cast
Modeller:
Sykepleier 1 – Susann Westermann
Sykepleier 2 – Ulrikke S
Hunk – Kristian Vintervoll

Makeup:
Tina Larsen
Siri Myran

Assistenter:
Bjørn Tore Økland
Sascha Njaa
Oscar Stoltenberg Johansen

Lånt utstyr:
Austin 1750 (1973mod): Bjørn Tore Økland
1xNikon SB-900 og Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8: Sascha Njaa
1xNikon SB-900: Martine Lein Skrove
2xNikon SB-600: Martine Elvira Heitmann Størseth
Legekoffert og sprøyte: Kjell Wormdal

Lenker til inspirasjonskilder

David La Chapelle
Dave Hill
Jill Greenberg

Andre i klassen sin løsning på oppgaven:

Anne Katrine Harkestad
Åsta Skjervøy
Bjørn Tore Økland
Camilla Hay Jenssen
David Nikolaisen
Hege Abrahamsen
Heidi Hallseth
Jarand Boge
Jens Westbye
Mats Kalland
Martine Lein Skrove
Rasmus Kongsøre
Renate Madsen
Sascha Njaa
Tuva Kleven

Bjørn Christiansen og Sascha Njaa under opptaket blits på location - foto: Bjørn Tore Økland

Tina Larsen i arbeid - foto: Bjørn Tore Økland

Kristian Vintervoll - blodig - foto: Tina Larsen