2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,200 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

FROZEN DRAGONFLIES

Actually it’s just frost on a window but to me it looks like frozen dragonflies or maybe fossils of the same. It’s quite amazing what kinds of shapes you can find in nature. So beautiful and sometimes so unexpected. This is what makes photography so interesting. To be able to explore the world around you and see things you never believed you would see.

Photographed with a small Canon SX50. The digital raw negative was color corrected in Lightroom 4.

WINDOW FROST

Found these beautiful ice patterns two days ago. Looks almost unreal. To me it’s like unknown paintings just waiting to be discovered. To photograph this you need good light to make it look right. I photographed these images in the last afternoon light. I used a small Canon SX50. The raw image was color corrected in Lightroom 4.

Detail from the larger picture.

WHERE’S THE SNOW?

Usually there’s a lot of snow this time of year. But right it’s just raining. So now it’s darker than ever. It’s sure hard to take the photographs you would like to. Snow brings magic to your photos.  But the other day I was lucky. It was snowing for a few hours. And this is how it turned out.

Photographed with a small Canon SX50. Color correction was done in Lightroom 4.

Merry christmas

to everybody who follows my blog!

OH WONDERFUL ANALOUGE FILM

Some negatives I recieved in the post today. Model is Cathrine Krusberg.

I’m so glad I made this decision. To go back to film. There’s sure nothing like it. For most assignments today digital is the only choice, but for personal projects film is still a viable option and sometimes a better one. Here’s seven reasons why I think it is.

1. PLANNING

You can’t just shoot like you do with digital. You have to plan properly. You have to think first and that’s a very good thing.

2. LIMITATIONS

Film has its limitations and that’s a good thing because anything that limits you also makes you more creative. What you first believe is a problem is often an opportunity instead.

3. COMPOSITIONS

Film is quite expensive and you don’t want to change rolls all the time. That awareness will help you to make better decisions when you compose the image because you know you have to get it right the first time.

4. THE RIGHT MOMENT

With most film cameras you can’t shoot five frames a second and that is a good thing! You have to wait for the right moment. You have to learn to be patient. Very patient.

5. TO VISUALIZE

When you shoot film you also have to be able to visualize what the end product will look like. For example what kind of image a certain kind of film roll will produce when you shoot in daylight or morning light. What will be the lens bring to the equation? And so on.

6.  THE COLORS

Film has truly wonderful colors. There’s a lot of this you can imitate in the digital world, so let’s be honest of that, but film still has the best colors in my opinion. Especially for portraits. Skin tones are often much better. Especially Kodak Portra. And Fuji sure makes some wonderful films as well.

7. THE COOL GEAR

If you are a gear freak this is the best part. There are so many cool cameras out there. Ebay is full of them. And if you’re lucky you can find one on a flee market almost for free.

Disclaimer: The negatives I uploaded on this page are photographed directly from the screen using a DSLR. Then I inverted the negatives in Lightroom! Don’t try this at home! But joke aside, it means those negatives are not properly scanned at all. So these samples do not represent the true quality of film. Real samples are coming up. Have to fix my analouge workflow first!

THE STORY BEHIND MY ART

The relationship between man and nature has been the theme in my work for a very long time. From early projects as the film Whirl (2004, later version 2007) to the upcoming photo exhibitions Soul Tattoo (2014) and In the Valley of Shadow of Death (2015). With my work I hope I can inspire people to think more about their own relationship to nature. SOUL BRANCH, BLACK & WHITE PRINT, 2012. MODEL: KRISTIN CALABRIA.

I look at mankind’s seperation from nature as something sad. Something that changed our culture and made people lose touch with their roots. How are you supposed to know who you really are when you have forgotten that you are part of nature? Just as nature are part of you. I know I’m preaching here but I wish we all could find that inner nature of ours and feel that we belong somewhere. I sure do because I grow up in a small village close to nature. But it was also easier back then. It was long before the internet and social medias became part of our everyday life. Back then the only thing you could do was to take a long walk or go fishing. Or drink beer with your friends. Stress wasn’t even an issue then. At least not in the countryside. Now the world is redrawn. More and more people move to cities by the day and urbanization hasn’t even reached it’s peak yet. We move further and further away from nature. Who knows maybe further away from ourselves? HOLD, BLACK & WHITE PRINT, 2012. MODEL: KRISTIN CALABRIA.,

The photos I’m posting today was shot in 2012 when I took part in an artist in residence program in Prague. Me and my friend and colleague, Susanne Hedman, helped me out during the entire photo shoot. Of all the beautiful places in Prague I choose to do most of the shooting at Kampa, a park in the middle of Prague just close to the Charles Bridge. The wonderful model during the whole three day photo shoot was actress Kristin Calabria. The theme for the pictures are of course our relationship to nature. We used many of the beautiful trees at Kampa in the images.

By the way, to hug a tree is something you should try. It makes you calm and relaxed!

The photos were shot on a Canon 550D and a 50mm 1.8. Cheap gear, but gives wonderful raw files to work with. Converted to B & W in Silver EFEX pro 2. All other adjustments made in Lightroom 4.

The pop up store

Det finns en liten pop up store på Fredsgatan 20 i Vasa där man kan köpa konstverk av många olika konstnärer. Här är några av mina bilder i butiken. Butiken håller öppet 11-18 varje dag utom söndag (12-18) till och med 16.12.

Pictures from the pop up store in Vasa, Finland.