BJØRN CHRISTIANSEN | Photographer

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sanne Ebbesen By

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Sanne Ebbesen By

In April I finally got to do a photo shoot with Sanne Ebbesen By from Trend Models, where she has been represented for a while. Luckily for us one of my favorite stylists was back in town and had time to do the styling for us. Since all three of us had roots from Orkdal we figured we should do the shoot there as well. Marthe booked Bårdshaug Herregård where I have done some shoots with Unni L and Maren Elise Aasen, both from Trend Models, earlier. After having studied at London College of Fashion for almost a year, Marthe had improved her style a bit and had picked out some cool outfits for us to work with.

Here are some old photos from an editorial fashion series I did at Bårdshaug three years ago.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Unni L

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Unni L

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Maren Elise Aasen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Maren Elise Aasen

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, Camilla Devik

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Devik

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Devik

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Camilla Devik

This easter I did a model test with Camilla Devik from Trend Models, photographing her in the area of Kalvskinnet in Trondheim.

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, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Lian Restaurant - Wintertime

This is a practical example on how you can trick people into believing you are a sporty guy doing cross country skiing. My parents has a cabin in the mountains and yes I have done cross country skiing, slalom and snowboarding when I was younger, but the recent ten years I haven’t prioritized those activities to my parents disappointment. Anyway, these are some environmental shots I did while assisting photographer Lars-Erik Berg at a photo shoot for Jekta Storsenter and Centerteam Reklamebyrå and their easter magazine a month ago. The shot was mainly a fashion photos shoot with models in the surrounding areas of Lian Restaurant in Trondheim, but Lars-Erik also wanted some shots of the surroundings that might be used to set the mood for his series, but they were never used. Models used in the shots was Elise S and Henrik from Trend Models.

LianRestauraunt.no (in Norwegian)

Lian Restaurant er blant Trondheims eldste og mest særegne restauranter, offisielt åpnet som restaurant i 1933. Før dette var Lian et av mange gårdsbruk i området. Den unike beliggenheten sørget for at gårdens kjøkken kunne tjene noen kroner på å selge kaffe og vafler turfolk. Lian ligger langs pilgrimsleden, så folk tok seg trolig en pust i bakken på gårdstunet for å se ned mot målet, Nidarosdomen.

Da Gråkallbanen byggde neste etappe av trikkeskinnen mot Gråkallen, kjøpe de gården og bygget på den karakteristiske funkis-rotunden. De ønsket en restaurant i enden av trikkesporet, slik at folk skulle benytte trikken og ta en tur i marka. Mange gjenskaper i dag nostalgien med å leie veterantrikk til sitt selskap.

Gråkalbanen bygde også badehus, grillplass og stupetårn ved Lianvannet. Her var det svømmestevner og skolesvømming. På vinteren ble det arrangert skøyteløp, bil-og motorsykkelløp og travløp. De sies at det første travløpet i Nord-Europa som involverte pengespill var på Lianvannet i 1928. Vest for restauranten lå det hoppbakke. Når eldre mennesker tar turen til Lian med sine familier får vi høre mange rørende historier om svømmeknappen eller hopplengden. Dette blir eventyr for barnebarn og oldebarn.

Da Ila skole ble okkupert under krigen ble undervisningen flyttet til Lian restaurant. Området ble også brukt av tyske soldater under krigen. Det ble bygget mange bunkerser på jordene på Lian. Disse står fremdeles inntakte.

Etter krigen fikk Lian en nedgangstid, men i 1953 kom reddningen. Anna og Ingolf Vanvik fikk beskjed av Gråkallbanens direktør Bøchmann; driv ordentlig i to år, så skal dere få kjøpe Lian! De starter en lang og møysomelig prosses med å bygge opp restauranten. Etterhvert ble datteren Helene involvert i driften. Sammen med mannen Jan Schjølberg forsatte de arbeidet etter Anna og Ingolf helt frem til 1996. Vårt hedersrom Schjølbergstua er vår måte å si takk til Vanvik/Schjølberg. Lian hadde trolig ikke overlevd som restaurant uten denne familien.

I perioden 1996-2005 er det flere eiere og drivere involvert i driften. Restauranten lyder navnet Lian Herregård i denne tiden. Ekteparet Elisabeth Skonseng og Inge Johnsen kjøpte Lian i 2005, og tok tilbake navnet Lian Restaurant. Sammen med sitt personell jobber de hardt med bedriftens filosofi om en ”varig sanseopplevelse for en samling med mennesker” og ”Kortreist mat i godt selskap”.

Click here if you want to see the final result of the magazine.

Tips on photographing snow

It might be a bit challenging to photograph out in the snow, but a quick and easy tip for doing it is to set the correct exposure at brightest of the snowy parts in your scene, and do a 1/3rd exposure compensation. This will in the shot blow out your brightest parts of the scene, but the advantage is that your darker parts in the shot get a brighter exposure. When you are converting your shots you still have a lot of details preserved in the light areas, and you the darker areas of your shot still has full details without so much noise. This tip can also be applied if you are shooting a wedding, expose the white wedding dress instead of the dark dress of the groom. If you do so, the white wedding dress in most cases are going to get fully blown out and the details will not be as easily saved.

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, Rebecca Løckra

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Rebecca Løckra

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Rebecca Løckra

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Rebecca Løckra

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Rebecca Løckra

This is the second and last part from my the series I shot with Rebecca Løckra earlier this year. Rebecca got represented as a model for Trend Models last year and has done some covers for Norwegian fashion magazines after winning a competition by Define Hair.

After working the whole weekend with event and portrait photography I am packing my camera equipment, setting my nose towards Copenhagen, Denmark to cover Copenhagen Fashion Week with the designer Lina-Therese Schiager Brækkan for Runway Passport, and to do some model tests of a few Danish models. Since I am traveling light I am still wondering what equipment I should bring and what to leave at home. Here is my temporary packing list, any feedback on what I should and should not bring?

• Nikon D800
• Nikon D700
• Battery grips for both cameras
• Universal Charger and batteries
• 24mm f/2.8
• 35mm f/1.4
• 50mm f/1.4
• 70-200mm f/2.8
• SB-900, bracket and cord
• Monopod
• Zacuto View Finder 3,2″
• GoPro Hero3 Silver Edition
• Cleaning kit for lenses
• 32Gb CF-cards x4
• Laptop
• Memory card reader
• 500Gb external harddrives
• Wacom Intuos4, drawing board
• Mice
• Business cards

At CFW I will mainly do shows (catwalk / runway) and backstage documentary, that is why I am bringing my prime lenses. The D800 has a slow FPS so this will remain the backup camera on when I shoot the shows, and be the main camera doing the documentary part. I really don’t need 36,6mpx on catwalk shots. The D700 has the advantage of having 11fps when boosting the camera with a BL4 battery and 12,1mpx photos is easing the computing power when going through a huge quantum of shots. I was thinking about bringing my followfocus kit (baseplate, 15mm rods, handle grip and follow focus) and Glidecam HD4000, but since I am just doing stills I can manage with just the Zacuto View Finder if I was to shoot a little video during the model testings. I’m a little bit of a fry head, I have managed to misplace my Eye-Fi card, but I will try to keep you posted on Instagram (bj0rn_net) with some cellphone shots.

Hope you enjoy the shots of Rebecca, and please do follow me on Facebook/FotografTrondheim :)

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, Maren Elise Aasen

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Maren Elise Aasen

Two photos from the fashion shoot I did with Maren Elise Aasen (Team Models / Trend Models) right before Christmas last year. Make-up and hair was done by Ann Karin Williams Aastø from OurStyle.

A video I shot of Maren last summer with the stylists from OurStyle

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Denis Muchiri

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Denis Muchiri

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Denis Muchiri

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Denis Muchiri

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Denis Muchiri

Some snapshots I did of Denis Muchiri from Trend Models. It is a simple one point light source and a white wall.

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.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Rebecca Løckra

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Rebecca Løckra

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Rebecca Løckra

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Rebecca Løckra

Just got back from my white-wall-studio after a few hours photographing Rebecca Løckra and Eva Marie Frisnes, both models represented by Trend Models. Keeping it simple we skipped the make-up artist and stylist and went along with clothes from their own closet. I’ve been working with Rebecca once more earlier while I was working at Centerteam Reklamebyrå last year, doing the light setup and retouching on an autumn campaign. Rebecca was the Define Hair Care-model of 2012 after winning a competition, Norway’s finest hair. She has had the cover of Kamille, features in Costume and has done some video commercials for Define Hair Care. Having challenged her into having a photo shoot where the smile and the cupcake-mood was replaced by a more raw and edgy style, she said yes photographing with me.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Maren Elise Aasen

Yesterday I had a test shoot with Maren Elise Aasen (Trend Models / Team Models). Despite working with a minimum amount of equipment and doing the shoot rather impulsively it turned out quite okay. Helping me out with make-up was Ann Karin Williams Aastø from OurStyle.

The setup consisted of a Nikon D800, Nikon MB-D12, Nikon Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8G vrII and a Nikon SB-900 mounted on a bracket and with attached to a i-TTL flash cord. The lens in the picture is a 35mm f/1.4G which were to wide. I had set the SB-900 to fire of with a power output of 1/8th-1/16th and zoom at around 90-120mm. Since I have mounted the flash so close to the lens it gives you a smaller shadow behind the subject. I have been looking to buy a flash bracket from Custom Brackets which does exactly this without having the standard bracket twisting.

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Oi Hår og Velvære – Hair Show

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Oi Hår og Velvære – Hair Show

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Oi Hår og Velvære – Hair Show

photo: Bjørn Christiansen, Oi Hår og Velvære – Hair Show

The last part of this series at Oi’s hair how at Royal Garden.

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