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.

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, modell: Marie Folstad, stylist: Tina Larsen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, modell: Marie Folstad, stylist: Tina Larsen

Dette er tredje del fra fashion-opptaket jeg gjorde for Tina Larsen fra H2-Akademiet i Trondheim. Inspirasjonen i bildene var hovedsaklig Tri orísky pro Popelku (Tre Nøtter til Askepott) og den veien, men på slutten av opptaket var både, modell, stylist/MUA, assistent og spesielt fotograf veldig slitne. Det resulterte i Heroin Chic-bilde i kjent Kate Moss-stil. Dessuten fikk vi skutt inn signatur-poseringen, som snart har blitt en standard for alt jeg gjør av opptak.

Dessuten våknet jeg opp til en utrolig varm omtale av Benedikte Bull i dag.

- Benedikte Bull

Ta gjerne turen innom hjemmesiden / bloggen for å se arbeidet til en fotografspire fra nord :)

Ellers å melde så er jeg inne i nest siste uke med arkitekturfotografering og det snør, snødde i morges. Det passer veldig dårlig for meg, og egentlig alle andre også, at det skal snø i starten av Mai med tanke på at jeg skal stå ute med et upraktisk stort storformat-kamera (4×5″) og ta bilder av Byåsen VGS. Man får vel bare bite i det sure eplet, det har jo tross alt blitt tatt bilder i dårlig vær før også.

Her er meg, ny sveis sist fredag ;)

Ha ei fin uke!

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Nina Mørk Johansen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Bjørn Tore Økland

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Erik Andreas Drabløs

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Ingunn Molden Grøntvedt

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Jarand Boge

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Sofie Brovold

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Roar Ølander

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Bente Isfjær og Åsta Skjervøy

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Tuva Kleven og Erik Andreas Drabløs

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Hege Marie Abrahamsen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Jarand Boge, Sofie Brovold og Hege Marie Abrahamsen prøver å finne ut hvordan en Sinar F2 skal skrus sammen.

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Hege Marie Abrahamsen

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Sofie Brovold

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Jarand Boge

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Jarand Boge og nyskjerrig tilskuer

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Jarand Boge

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Jarand Boge

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Jens Westbye (Rørsjakta) og Jarand Boge (Underfordekeren)

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Åsta Skjervøy, Martine Elvira Heitmann og Jens Westbye

foto: Bjørn Christiansen, på bildet: Jarand Boge, Jens Westbye, Sofie Brovld og Linn Johansson

Kurset på skolen i disse dager omhandler arkitekturfotografering. Den første oppgaven gikk ut på å fotografere et papprør med et Sinar F2 4×5″ Storformat-kamera. 4×5″ tilsvarer i centimeter 10,16×12,7, noe som er adskillig større format å jobbe med enn den vanlige 36×24 (3,6cm x 2,4cm) også kjent som småbildeformat, den vanlige mann i gata rusler rundt med. Til vanlig har man enten 24 eller 36 eksponeringer / bilder på en småbildeformat i motsetning til storbildeformat hvor man har to eksponeringer per kassett.

Den neste oppgaven var å fotografere to interiørbilder og et eksteriørbilde / arkitekturbilde. Interiørbildene ble tatt på Rosenborg Reklame som holder til i nabobygget til Norsk Fotofagskole og eksteriørbildet mitt ble tatt av en boligblokk i nærmiljøet i Ilsvika. Erfaringsmessig fant jeg fort ut at det var relativt vanskelig å få alle linjene, som er så viktig i arkiktekturfotografering, vinkelrette i forhold til hverandre. Litt uheldig lading av filmen og en ikke helt flat scanner på skolen gjorde at interørbildene mine ble litt skeive.

Den tredje oppgaven, som jeg gjennomførte første opptak av i dag, går ut på å fotografere NTNU Gløshaugen og nærmere bestemt Realfagsbygget der oppe. I denne oppgaven skal vi levere to eksteriørbilder og to interiørbilder, og alt skal fotograferes på storformat. Samarbeidspartnerne mine, Sofie Brovold, Hege Abrahamsen og Jarand Boge startet halv ti i formiddag med å lade kassetter med film for så å ta turen opp til NTNU for å starte opptaket.
Etter at de tre første bildene ble tatt fant vi ut at belgen, trakten som står mellom forstykket og bakstykket på en Sinar F2, ikke var festet skikkelig. Dette betydde at vi måtte ta tre nye bilder bare for å være helt sikker på å få ett brukbart resultat. Ellers gikk det meste knirkefritt. Vi fikk etter litt leting og tips fra en ansatt på multimediasentret om et nesten lystett toalett vi kunne lade film på. Litt Gaffatape gjorde susen for å tette det lille lysinnslippet i dørsprekken.
Siste bildet ble knipset rundt kvart over fem i ettermiddag. Jarand hadde dratt tilbake til skolen to timer tidligere for å starte fremkallingen av de første eksponeringene og Sofie tar seg av fremkallinga av negativene i kveld. Det blir spennende å se resultatet i morgen. Blir man sendt opp på Gløshaugen en gang til for å ta bildene på nytt eller ikke. Tiden vil vise.

Siste oppgave i arkitekturfoto-kurset er å fotografere et valgfritt bygg med byggeår etter år 2000. Ni bilder, minst tre interiør og tre eksteriør og tre valgfrie. De valgfrie kan enten være av samme slaget som de to første og eller detaljbilder for å fremheve arkitekturen. Jeg for min del har valgt å fotografere Byåsen Videregående Skole fordi bygget i første omgang er av nyere dato, 2004 om jeg ikke tar helt feil. Og fordi sist jeg var på besøk på skolen var også i forbindelse med fotografering. Den gang var det gruppebilder og portretter av så og si hele skolen. Arkitekten bak skolen er Hus arkitekter AS med Ingmar Askeland som sjefsarkitekt, og Løvetann Landskap hadde ansvaret for landskapsarkitekturen rundt skolen. Skolen vant også Skolebyggprisen for 2004.
Hus arkitekter AS står også bak Realfagsbygget på NTNU.
Jeg har enda ikke mottatt noe svar fra skolen enda, men håper nå på det beste.