Hollywood Lighting

I’ve really started to like hard lighting. If it works it can make portraits almost look 3D-like. If it doesn’t work it’ll be a disaster with very unpleasing shadows in the wrong place. Still worth a try.

Having mostly aimed for soft light with soft boxes and shoot-through brollies in the past, I took on the task to learn more about hard light. I wanted to create the classic “Hollywood lighting” or cinematic lighting from the 1940s that is so popular. Think Marilyn Monroe and you know what I mean.

I spent an evening doing self-portraits, just to see what the shadows looked like. My Canon Speedlite 580 EX IIs came in very handy, as they are small light sources and can be made even smaller and harder with grids and snoots from HONL, perfect for what I was looking for.

Self-portraits can be interesting and good practise, but my wife is definitely a better model, so I asked her to sit in for a few shots. I think we’re both pretty pleased with the result.

New Life

One of my favourite local spots seems to be going through a bit of a change. There were actually people there this weekend seemingly busy to try to clear the area of junk and debris. The place isn’t going to look respectable anytime soon is my prediction, but at least I got the chance to shoot it again in all it’s glory. We were even a bit lucky with the light.

Here are a few of the images. It’s all natural light. Some are HDR. I’ll try to post a few more in a few days. Enjoy!

The Beach

I hooked up with very talented model (and working photographer) Marcela Diaz in August to create some traditional beach images, including bikinis and beachwear. Well, that was the plan…

The summer had been fantastic, with hot and sunny weather in abundance… until we decided to do a beach session. After a number of failed attempts we decided to give it a go.

Finally at the beach we realised just how windy and overcast the conditions actually were. We had initially talked about high contrast beachfront pictures with blue skies and a lots of sun. Instead we had to change our plan drastically.


More after the break…

6 Celsius

Found these images I took last year helping a newly started modelling agency and two hopeful models to start work on their books. We all dared the elements at Skeppsholmen, Stockholm in 6 Celsius and at times heavy rain in late October last year. Given the circumstances not bad at all.

More after the break...

Autumn is around the corner

Even though the thermometer tells me its 20C I can feel the autumn coming. It’s something in the clean air that you can almost touch. It tells me summer is finally over and its time for knitwear. So to prepare I thought I’d share some images from a shoot last autumn with lively Fanny. Enjoy!

More after the break...

Evening dress

Fanny wanted to take some pictures wearing an evening dress in a place where one usually don’t wear this type of attire. Interesting idea I thought and went location scouting, until I found an abandoned factory that was perfect for the job.

Equipped with my lightweight mobile setup we sneaked into the place around noon to make the best use of any natural light available, which wasn’t much at all. I think the pics turned out nicely nevertheless. What do you think?

More after the break…

Gig Photography

I really enjoy photographing live gigs when I get the chance. This weekend Fibes, Oh Fibes! and Martin Stenmarck came to visit.
EOS in hand, spot metering on and my trusty 70-200 and 50mm landed me a few OK shots. Or what do you think?
First up a few pics from Fibes, Oh Fibes!…

More after the break…