For the sake of light mongering.

Hello internet. 

Where do we start? I think geographically would make good sense. I'M HOME!!! Back in my zone in the Mother City AKA Cape Town. What a stoke to be where I belong again… Been way too long since I walked on the beach barefoot in the warm, white sand and smiled to myself marvelling at the trivial yet beautiful details life has to offer. I have been doing this fairly often as I have been surfing and bodyboarding almost everyday since I have been home nearly 3 weeks now, and in order to get from the car park down to the waters edge, you have to walk along the warm, white sand. Some times life just hands you these nuggets and it feels like smiling is the most gracious way to say thanks.

So much to get out here, and I have been fairly slack with the whole blogging thing lately, that is not to say that I have been slack with the whole shooting thing, this is definitely not the case. In fact it is the polar opposite, I have shooting more than I can actually handle. I have shot plenty, and now I also sit with copious amounts of unedited pictures and only more and more ideas pouring out of my inspirationally saturated mind. Its literally like a downward spiral that is terminally growing at a frightening rate. However, the minutely sensible side of me has decided to take a stand against this process and start dealing with this apparent "problem" by getting my ducks in a row and churning out some pictures. Hopefully this will even out the scales in the right direction again. I take comfort in the fact knowing that I am getting somewhere now, but yet the problem will always remain the same, the one things that is absolutely essential in this line of work and has become a personal philosophy of mine over the last few months as well, consistency. Just got to keep on keeping' on.

Some times I have the intricate, elaborate and exquisite ideas that lead to beautiful images. I love exploring, developing and entertaining ideas and concepts that will challenge norms and standards that I have learned to accept and that I have become used to. Other times I can be just as happy shooting something simple and classic that will give me just as beautiful pictures. I have been playing a lot and experimenting with some things that have been yielding cool and different results. Instead of getting mad creative and throwing colours, textures and tones around, its just trying something different like maybe cutting a light modifier apart and putting it back together differently to try out something new, shooting with a different number of lights to what I am used to, shooting a different style of lighting, the list goes on and on, but basically I have gone back to basics and tried to make the changes all on my side of the camera before I get into post production. I love this as it reminds me that photography is a craft like being a carpenter or someone that one has to know their tools well in order to be a master at their craft. 

For a while I got out of the style I was shooting, started shooting different things, looking at different photographers' works, following different people, looking for inspiration in different places and generally trying to do things differently. I thought I had progressed and broken through to a new tier of being a super shit good photographer or a good super shit photographer. However this was not to be the case, I ended up going through a very brief and and rapid change of styles in a very short period of time. This all sort of happened subconsciously as I did not even realise it until I had seen the three last sets of pictures I had shot and seen the clear resemblance between all of them. Whatever, I just happy to be shooting and seemingly learning more and more and getting "better". I guess better is a bad word here, but I feel like I am progressing, I don't think one photographers work can be better or more right than another's, I think this comes down to personal taste and I don't really think that ones taste can ever be up for discussion. I love editorial photography, but not so much wedding photography, even though I give wedding photographers mad props for doing what they do. And you can fuck right off for trying to tell me that editorial photography is not as good as another style of photography. I guess this leads back to one of  my favourite editorial photographers, and if you read this blog often, you will have seen his name here before, Mr Zack Arias. What a dude. What a fucking dude. Zack, if you ever happen to stumble across my humble offerings by some sliver of chance, here it is man, your work is the shit. You are the business and a large part of the reason I keep shooting pictures. I aspire to shoot the jobs you are turning down. For real.

For those of you that are familiar with Zack's work, I guess you can see that I am influenced by him and have often drawn inspiration for my own shoots from his work. 

I went through a stage where I wanted to shoot just like him, not exactly, but as closely as possible without looking like a cheese. After a while and with much resented influence from the fashion industry, I sorta went rogue and just started shooting things the way I saw them and wanted them to be. I was really happy at one point that I thought I had managed to break out of this mould I had placed myself in, but then these Ariasesque flashbacks starting showing up throughout my sets and I could tell I was not really moving forward in the direction I wanted to. This is probably when I also went through my "fuckit I don't want to shoot" phase, which incidentally tied in with the "weather is complete balls and I am depressed and not amped to shoot" phase. This kinda threw me a bit as I just kept on going and shooting little jobs here and there and then spending a lot of time working on my personal projects, some of which were torn to pieces by some fucking ridiculously dim witted people that I foolishly allowed myself to work with. Moving along swiftly though, I have been refining my personal work like a finely tuned and caringly crafted Islay whiskey. The results are quite pleasing and I am looking very forward to shooting the Cape Town leg of these projects which will be slightly more "exciting". Exciting fits quite well here as generally where there is a chance you may be, shot to death, stabbed to death, raped to death or killed to death in shape, form or mean a fair amount of excitement is usually involved. I won't give too much away at this stage, but Im going to be exploring the grittier, untamed side of South Africa in order to showcase the shit that isn't so glamorous and/or fabulous. 

So things are coming along at a fair pace at the moment, starting to make progress on various things, networking with various agencies, getting a team together, planning out some shoots, making deals and doing favours and service trade's with various people. Possibly my favourite part about all this is the location scouting. My word are we blessed in terms of diversity and rad places to make beautiful pictures here in Cape Town. Another thing that makes life all the more pleasant in the whole scheme of things down here is the amount of light we have, and not just shit, flat, grey light, but amazing, warm, flattering light. Really spoilt for amount of usable hours to get out of the day.

Ok, enough nonsense for the mean time, here are some pictures I shot for the sake of being active and doing something cool for the sake of doing it. The model in question is from on of my local agency's in Trondheim, Trend Models. This set ties in with the last set of headshot's I posted, I eventually managed to get my shit together and find the colours, tones and feel I wanted, which also happened to not be any of the other ones I had played with before either, typical. Enjoy and check in soon again. Cheers, N. 

From Iceland with love.

Hi again. Where do we get the ball rolling here? I've been up to my ears in getting things in order for the next couple weeks, months, lifetimes. But apart from that, I have also been shooting, editing and producing far more than usual. Things are moving at light speed right now. Just they way I like it. I have so many ideas for cool posts, marketing, nerdy-tech talk, and loads more stuff that I cant give away right now... Stay tuned.

As much as I would love to rattle on about this and that and seduce you into reading my carefully worded and somewhat condescending bullshit, there is a point to this post. Read on.

What is at stake when you ask a stranger if you can shoot pictures of them? I think I should refine this a tad. What is at stake when you ask a beautiful young woman if she is comfortable in front of the camera in her underwear? Everything and nothing. I have the "no dignity, no shame" approach to this. If my game is right on the day I can walk into almost any situation and make something interesting happen. Especially if you involve people. I love people, and taking pictures of people is by far the ace up my sleeve. On the other hand though, if my game is off on the day, I can blow it big time, and I have before.

I sit down for lunch at a swish cafe in downtown Reykjavik. In between the insane days of shooting for my friends at Elite Model Iceland, the last thing I can think of is doing personal work in my precious, sleep deprived spare time. I see her immediately, she glides through the room like a figure skater on ice. She is tall, strawberry blonde, with glacial blue like eyes. I think its the eyes that did it. This is a headshot waiting to happen, a flick of the hair that needs to be captured. Natural beauty that is staring me right in the face. My mind starts racing to figure out how to "document" this. Concepts, colours, tones and textures are vivid and not the primary focus of what I want here. I lost track of this thought process as soon as my food arrived. Anything with meat and mushroom sauce will stop me dead in my tracks. A few mastication cycles later I finish my steak sandwich and double thick chocolate milkshake.
On my way out I ask the girl that ruined all hope of focusing on doing anything productive that day if I can shoot pictures of her. She smiles, laughs and asks me if I'm serious. An brief exchange of telephone numbers and a few text messages later we have a date.

I wanted to shoot this outside of the studio, somewhere easy, chilled and "contrasty". After much thought and unnecessary stress, I did something I usually never do. I walk in to a situation basically blindfolded. We shot this around my subjects house, a place I have seen or been to before. I had no idea what I was getting into. After surveying my current surroundings for a few minutes, I had my plan. Out come the umbrella's, the speedlights, radio triggers and whats that thing called again? Uhm, that clicky-button wotsit... CAMERA! Yes! that came out.

About halfway into the shoot, me hustling gear back and forth and chopping and changing things out, she says: "I think my brother is looking for me". Completely oblivious to the fact that I am standing in a small forest with a woman in her underwear, this blew straight over my head. A few seconds later I wake up to the potential danger I am now in. Best figure out who might be chasing me through woods in a few moments. "How old is he and what does he do?" I ask with a tone that hopefully doesn't  reveal my true fear of getting pounded by the over protective Icelandic big brother. "He's 31 and he's a hardcore electro DJ..." Fuck. Great. Sounds like a nice guy.

I'll cut to the chase. He turns out to actually be the most chilled and well travelled, well read Icelander I have met to date. You know who you are man! I hope you read this and remember that the offer still stands to drop in when I'm in Cape Town, both of you are most welcome. I must squeeze a quick thank you in here to both my model for the day, who is absolutely STUNNING! and to "big brother". Thanks for not remixing my face. I know your names, for anonymity's sake, I won't drop them here.
Here are some pictures, much love, N.

Sunday evening once again...

Definetly a first blogging and editing pictures on a train. Done it on a plane, ferry, car and mostly while stationary at a desk of sorts. Trains are definitely not my favourite mode of transport, but the Dutch rail system is fantastic. Those weren't quite my first impressions after I got on the wrong train 3 times on my way out of Schiphol. I thought there was a major flaw in the system and the nincompoop that designed it should have all his dope smoking and soccer viewing rights stripped immediately. Because I am the leading authority on modern rail transport in Europe and thats the end of it.

Im on way to Eindhoven from Groningen with my long lost cousin Sabine. The plan is to meet her dog, crash on the couch and wake up and get my flight back to Trondheim tomorrow. Thats the plan at least. About halfway through the 3 and a bit hour journey and I felt the creative juices manifest in fingers, so why not right? One thing that is niggling me a bit right now is this: I bought a really cool T-shirt yesterday, which is white. I don't usually wear white because I'm very messy and they usually end up a pale shade of yellow within a few hours. But despite my common sense telling me not to buy a designer white t-shirt, my fashion sense told me that this new addition to me already bursting at the seams wardrobe would greatly increase my quality of life and amount of interest shown from the opposite sex. Seems pretty logical huh? Thats what I thought too, but for some reason, literally every time I look down I find a new stain or smudge of something on my new babe magnet of a t-shirt. Not only is this irritating as it further proves the point of common sense that I should just not wear white ever, but it is alarming to think of all the potential women that have been turned away because they can clearly see the off coloured eye-sores that are scattered down the front of me. Thank the washing machine I haven't been near a mirror, I dare to see what the back of this thing looks like now. In these trying times of being young and single, what is a bachelor to do? This current state of panic has left me with very few options, either just put on my coat and hide the grease rag that I adorn with shame and disgust, or just keep on truckin'? Either way, I don't think the chances of meeting the next Mrs Schwerdtfeger are very high on a train across Holland on a Sunday night. But being aware never hurt.

All the travelling in the last couple months has definitely done something to me. Im constantly seeing new things, new faces, new ideas, new places, new styles. Im really feeling like this could be just what I need at the moment. Work, take pictures, network, travel. Bit of sleeping and eating in between there every now and then and I could be peachy. I wish there was a way to make money form travelling…. I know there is, but thats not real money that now unfortunately I have become used to. Im torn apart with this catch 22 of buying an apartment in Norway and building a studio and building up my business from there and hustling in all directions and progressing upward. Or being young and free and travelling and seeing the beauty of the things that are just a stone throw away from me. Bring inspired is so important to me and I guess to everyone that is creating or making things that have a personal touch. I went through a phase a while ago, where I was more interested in inverse square law and technical mish mash of lighting than actually taking pictures. I didn't shoot for at least 6 weeks and felt horrible. I had nothing around me that I was able to draw any incentive from to go out and shoot, even if they were shitty pictures. Right now though I feel like Im on fire though. I have so many ideas and so many concepts that are starting to take shape and form, that Im really struggling to find enough time in the day to plan everything out and make things happen. A balance between the two would be nice though. As with everything balance is essential, I would love to be shooting two or three small productions over a two week period, once a month shooting something big, and in between doing all the bits and pieces needed to string everything together. I would also love a digital medium format camera, a wireless Profoto battery aggregate, and a big studio to chuck it all in. Donations are accepted. Life goes on without the niceties and the wish list continues to grow. 

The balance of things has been present in my thoughts more often than ever in last couple of months. Balancing myself, balancing my pictures, balancing my book, and the ever important balancing of the bank statements at the end of the month. I sent my book into a publishing group in Oslo a while ago, just asking for some feedback and constructive criticism on what I'm doing at the moment. I got both and a bit more than I bargained for in back. The one comment that I received and some thing I have been told by my peers as well is that I don't  shoot enough guys. My book right now is filled with beautiful women between 20 and 30. Thats great for me, as I love shooting beautiful women, but as a photographer I need to show that I can do both. The publishing house told me to expand my range, shoot men, shoot grandparents, shoot kids, shoot couples, and shoot more guys in general. I haven't really listened. I however do have a number of shoots lined up over the next month that feature one guy, two guys and a boy + girl. That should even things out a bit. Another thing that I personally noticed is that all my head shots are being done against 255 white. (255 white is pure white on the colour saturation chart) This is because I know it and can pretty much do it blindfolded, shoot a key light with a soft modifier at 45 degrees in to subject, over-expose the background by an evaluative 3 stops with a slave light and there you go. I have got that down, but it is also a bit of a one trick pony. Its my go to with anything that involves people. As soon as I get more space and bigger lights I will be doing full length shots like this too. The one one thing this type of shot has in its defence is that it is timeless. It will never be a dated shot. Its clean, its elegant and minimalist. These are three things that I love to get the viewer of the photo to note. Now, my next session, which should be on Tuesday or Wednesday week I will break out of this box. Im going to do something different, convey mood with use of lighting not only on subject but on the background and foreground too. Im excited now!

Almost in Eindhoven now, so here is something visual instead of me rambling on for the remainder of this post. Have a great week out there. Do something differently, do something you wouldn't usually, be daring, be adventurous, be alive. But most importantly, take it easy. N 

3 x amazing bands, 2 x Shoes, 1 x 35mm lens.

Im in trouble... The longer I stay here in Reykjavik, the more I wanna live here. I've pretty much decided that next year for summer this is where I'm going to be. I actually dont have a valid reason to stay in Norway anymore. Not with knowing what going on across the pond. Its just another game here. Everything I thought I knew before has become superfluous now, different set of rules in every sense. Really such a beautiful place, the people, the energy, the love, just such a breath of fresh air. Comparing it to Norway would be like comparing Woodstock in the 60's to San Quentin State Penitentiary today, really.

I was cruising around yesterday after lunch and the weather was awesome, I noticed there were masses of people moving in the same direction as I was, out of sheer anxiety for a sudden volcanic eruption, I stopped and asked someone what was happening. There was an open air show with three Icelandic bands playing in the park. For free. Cool. So I thought I might as well go check it out. I had no idea what to expect, maybe a couple hundred people and some music? Turned out to be what I reckon could have been 35000 - 40000 people, although I could have very well been more. Also I had never heard of any of the bands that were playing.

The line up was:

  

WOW!!! I was dumbstruck. Coolest show since the last one I hit up on Thursday. HAHA. No, obviously you cant compare the vibe of a club filled to the brim with crazed party people to an open air "festival" with thousands. What a treat though.

I only had my 35mm on the 5D, which is an amazing lens in terms of image quality and the fact that its the fastest glass I own makes it very versatile for any lighting situation. However, If I had my 24-70mm and my 70-200mm I would have been a lot more comfortable. The 24-70mm was back at the hostel and the 70-200mm didn't fall into the "pack only necessary items that let you move quickly" category.
So only having that one prime lens made things slightly frustrating, but fun none the less. I ended up shooting 750+ images of which I have selected 3. Here they are. Out to find some lunch now. N.

Mammut

Lay Low

Of Monsters and Men

The mass of mentalist Icelanders behind me, you can see the famous Reykjavik church in the background

Photo competition...

Word up... Interesting day, i got myself involved in a photo competition this morning. I was trolling the local 2nd hand market for photo gear and i saw the ad for this competition, so I thought, why not right? The prize for the national winner is a new special edition Canon EOS 60D, and the grand prize is a brand new Nissan Qasqhai. So either way, I've got nothing to lose....

You can check the gallery of all the other entries among mine here:

http://www.qatchme.no/subpage/?lang=no&gallery&page=0

If youre on facebrick, you could check the gallery out and "like" my photo's, and if I win, I'll take you for a spin in my new ride.

Otherwise, got some cool other stuff lined up for next week, mostly some editorial stuff i want to... ive got loads of idea's and inspiration at the moment, so im just going to keep shooting.
Hopefully i also get to shoot some stuff for TREND Models. Would be cool to do a studio session...

I played with an EF 35mm ƒ1.4 today....OMFG!!! Possibly the sexiest prime lens ever. I was originally looking at the EF 50mm ƒ1.2 because of its background obliterating aperture of ƒ1.2, but on my 7D, which has a 1.6X crop sensor, its kinda "tight". The 35mm is actually closer to 50mm on crop. But optically still 35mm, and its ƒ1.4.... Going to have to work some serious O/T....

Anyway, here are some of my pictures i entered for the Qasqhai Qatch me if you can competition. Laters, N.