Fresh outta Reykjavik pt3

Ok, so this one is a bit late, but better late than crying yourself to sleep because you never seem to get anything finished that you start out with. Don't really know how this slipped passed me, but for some reason it did, and thats why I'm feeling somewhat sheepish now.

Enough! These are "rest" of the pictures from my trip to Iceland a while back. My word. I miss that place. So fucking much. I have been speaking to some of friends over there the last couple of weeks, and even via Facebook, I just feel like Im being hugged and loved and made to feel at home. Weird how Norway being very close to part of continental Europe has shaped its people to be aloof and so wary of social interaction, whereas Iceland which is literally a large volcano in the middle of the ocean, has the warmest and most genuine people I have ever encountered. Thank you backwards society that has made me question uprooting and moving to a volcano a viable option. I am definitely going to be back there soon. So many things I have left to do over there. The list grows every time I start thinking about it. Something to look forward too always makes me fizz a little. Theres also a good chance that the most probable Mrs Schwerdtfeger is chilling somewhere on that volcano. Mmmmmm. 

Im out at work (offshore) at the moment, quite possibly the last trip for the year. I love my job. I love my career. There is a difference. I love that am sitting in the middle of the North Sea right now, alcohol free beer in one hand, freshly hand rolled smoke in the other, watching a sunset that most people travel halfway around the world to see. I wont even get started about the food. Ok, maybe I will. Tonight was a seafood buffet that was comprised of lobster, king crab, mussels, prawns, scallops, 6 different types of bread and aioli's. Fresh berries and cream for dessert. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday evening. Ok, admittedly, blogging might not be the most banging thing to do on a Saturday night as a 25 year old guy. Kinda lame? Possibly... What a blessing all of it is. I am extremely grateful for my situation. I will be sure to put up some pictures from the last couple of trips soon. Sooooo much blogging to do, so frustrating to get my thoughts through this keyboard and onto this screen though. Video blogging? Yes. It will happen soon. Actually had a pretty rad idea for a video blog in relation to the same bunch of questions I have been fielding over the last couple of weeks. Will try to the best of my ability to make it happen. Promise! 

Otherwise, all is well on all other fronts. Apart from the fact that a friend of mine who is a DJ from Oslo and an self-admittted Sisqo fan is currently chilling at my apartment in TRD. Although I made it quite clear what the house rules were and the consequences should they broken, I cant help but being on edge. I have brain flashes that I will get home and the will be rings on my coffee table from damp glasses. RINGS! On my coffee table? Fuck! I think I would throw my toys out the cot properly if that happened. Lord, please have mercy on that coffee table. I know in my last post I wrote about this fictitious relationship I have with my camera, (who I found out is a girl! Sounds whack? Well, the Canon EOS 7D is a boy, whereas the 5D Mk2 is a girl! I made this up based purely upon theory that if these cameras were people, the 7D would have balls, whereas the the 5D Mk2 would have a perky set of muffin sized boobs with little nipples that point slightly outwards and just above the horizon.) but I think the relationship I have with this coffee table is slightly more intense. Maybe even borderline psychotic. I think the root of the problem lies within the nature of these two tangible objects. Here is the situation: Even though I received Genevieve (the camera) fully assembled, and we have created countless memories together, I built Jameson (the table) from nothing, I screwed, hammered, tweaked and made that thing with my own hands. I sweated, bled (yes, I actually cut myself opening the box) and cursed while manufacturing that sexy little bastard. I think the attachment came through the bonding process of spending many futile hours wrestling the four legged monster to completion. Admittedly I did have some "help" from a girlfriend during this gruelling process. Help is a term I throw around very loosely these days. I better not get started on Madeleine (the sofa). I have full faith in the fact that all will be ok because I know the DJ in question frequents this blog. If you read this Even, I hope you find the drink coaster's within the table and use them to their full ability, this way we can avoid a heartbreaking on my side and a potentially painful sodomising on yours. Really though, I have stabbed nicer people for less.

More to the point here. If you read the title, you wonder what all of this bullshit has to do with Reykjavik? Nothing. However, the pictures that follow do. This set of headshot's slipped passed me in the chaos that was the last couple of months. I would have loved to shoot more of the model in question out on our tour of the beautiful Icelandic coast, but due to time constraints and poor planning we missed that. None the less, such a pleasure it was working with her and the rest of my team. If you have a look back a while, you can see pt1 and 2 of my "Fresh Outta Reykjavik" series. For the first time about three weeks ago, I looked at all of the headshot's from all 4 girls together. They look amazing side by side. The colour palettes and tones for each of them is different, but I made a conscious decision while shooting them that lighting and feel for each would be very similar so that it carries throughout the entire set. #consistency. Have a feeling all of them will look sweet as peaches when blown up to A3 and block mounted in my office. Really amped to start making prints of some my collection from the last couple of months. Well, thats all for right now. Have some cool "lifestyle snapshits"coming up in the next post. Stay classy, N.

Fresh outta Reykjavik pt2

Ok, so its September and I have been pretty slack on keeping to my schedule with making things happen on the blog front. This can be attributed to a few reasons which I shall now list in non-chronological order.

-I bought an apartment. A very, very nice apartment. Ok, very nice doesn't quite cut it here, Its fucking amazing!

-I tore the tendons in two fingers during an over-psyched climbing session which meant I couldn't hold my camera and was in excruciating pain for 3 days. 

-As soon as the fingers were capable of taking a bit of strain, I made up for lost time by shooting at a furious rate.

-I have been getting all my ducks in a row regarding the financial side of things with Two Shoes Photo. This is a tedious process., made even more fun by the fact all the documents are in Norwegian.

-I have been making lists of things in non-chronological order in my spare time to procrastinate the actual effective use of my time. Its sad.

But more to the point here, the remainder of my pictures from my trip to Iceland are finished and have been delivered! This is a milestone for me as this has been the Achilles heel in my life for me for the last few weeks. Finally I can start planning the next move for the fashion side. Its going to be especially interesting was now I have free access to my own studio! Before I run away with plans on what will be happening here, and there will be ALOT happening, let me take you through what you're about to see.

Apart from the head shots which are pretty straight forward and don't really require a written explanation, I would like to just do a quick run down of the stuff we shot on location. The previous days shooting was fantastic right until I got the rental car submerged up to the chassis in fine Icelandic beach sand. Admittedly this was one of the most shameful moments in my history as a human being. I felt a part of my "South African-ness" get sucked down with the underpowered Chevrolet into the sand that would become known as the "vibe-killer" on set. For those of you that are unaware, I will explain, South African men, the endangered species that we are would never admit to getting any car stuck anywhere. Its the kind of statement that will usually demote you in the pecking order with the boys. We are the kind of people that would rather bludgeon our meal to death, cook it over an open fire than "pay" for anything another male might have prepared. I use inverted comma's on pay because this is a concept that has also been a bit foggy to us. We have learned the most efficient way to get something is to "take". My testosterone level was already sinking rapidly, this was now made even worse by the fact I was surrounded by a female make up and hair stylist, a female fashion stylist, and two female models. Better start digging Nic. Eventually, a coarse and bloody fingered two hours later, and with the help of a passer-by his 1400nM truck, we freed the fucking useless piece of shit 2WD Chevrolet poor defenceless Chevrolet. The time was now 1:30AM and we still had three more setups to shoot. The shoot finished at 6:00AM. 

The next was looking challenging already. Luckily, and if it weren't for this, I probably would have had a wobbly out on location, my model was an absolute dream to work with. What a massive difference this makes. My team was for lack of a better word, perfect. It just gelled. Everything ran like clockwork. I have never had things work that efficiently on a shoot before. We shot a bunch of different outfits in the field of flowers and herbs, basically just trying out different looks, lighting setups, lighting modifiers, moods and ideas. I was initially struggling to find my footing with the Profoto system and balance out the ambient and strobe lighting, not because of the math, but it wasn't really doing anything for me. In the end, i ditched the strobes as I felt and could clearly see the beautiful natural light was doing a lot more for the look I wanted. I flipped the motor drive on and just did a series of natural light bursts which logistically is way easier. You will see in the images that follow what I'm talking about. As much of a treat it was to work with US$ 30000 lighting rig, turning it off and unplugging it was probably the best decision I made that day. I think the concept that we had planned out initially real came to life in that day shooting. I would love to share the images that we used for inspiration, but due to laws and professional courtesy, I can't. I will say though, that natural beauty, playfulness, intrigue, mystique, Lord of the Rings, movement, flow, balanced, Arwin, wind, and dynamic were some of the words that we threw around the table the first time we all met up. I was ecstatic when I first brought the images into Lightroom, as I could immediately tell that this was going to be killer. What a difference it makes to work with like minded people, chilled, open minded, and creative people. A sense of humour goes a really long way on a shoot like this. Its fun, it's about playing, being uninhibited and doing something different. As much of  a technical nerd I am when it comes to taking pictures, every now and then when there are these moments that you just can't plan out, you can't prep for the small details. I will tell you that having a model as animated, extroverted and wild as Una from Elite will make things sooooo much easier. I really remember that day as one of the best days I have had to date shooting pictures. I thank all of you that I worked with for your amazing skill, creativity and sense of humour. 

Im off to work for a short while on Tuesday, and when I get back I will moving out of the desolate wank pit into my new abode AKA Two Shoes castle of coitus. But I have PLENTY of stuff that will go up in the next couple of days. Stay tuned for something fresh and energetic over the next week or so. Possibly even a video appearance! Here are the pictures featuring the stunning and undoubtedly talented Una Rikey from Elite Model Iceland. Have a great week and stay classy. 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.

Fresh outta Reykjavik pt1.

I would love to write some intellectual, witty and nonsensical paragraph to trick everyone into thinking that I am better with words than I actually am. I would love for you to think that I am a talented writer as well as a talented photographer. I would love to write that I would love to have permanent hair removal in certain areas of my body without feeling metrosexual. I would love it if people actually read the bullshit that I wrote. I would love for the advertising agency that does all the media for Bik Bok and Vero Moda to call me up and ask me if I would like to shoot their winter catalogue. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't work like this.

Unfortunately every now and then I have to put some effort in. Right now there are 1000 different things going on that I need to put effort into. I think I've spent more time contemplating which one of these things to jump onto and run with that I have run out of time to complete some of them. There are endless things I could fill up my day with that lead to absolute 0 productivity. I have been "overly-productive" the last couple of weeks, I know this because I feel strained and exhausted at the moment. I cant bare to look at another set of pictures in Lightroom. 

On the other hand though, I am fizzing to get these pictures out and show the world what I can do given the right tools. I can create, I can develop, I can express, I can experiment, I can play.

The following set of pictures was an impulsive trip to Reykjavik. Fuelled by energy, love, warmth and friendship. I have to give an ENORMOUS shout out to my crew over the days I was working there.

Arnar Gauti - The man making the fashion scene in Iceland work. You are a visionary and it is an honour to call you a friend.

Johanna Pålsdottir - My mom away from home. What more can I say? Most heartfelt thanks for everything.

Agnes Gudmundsdottir - None of this would have happened without your input. You're a gem. Best of luck in Paris.

Birgitta Asbjornsdottir - My go to woman in Iceland for almost everything. These pictures would not be what they are without you. Fashion stylist of note.

Astridur Gisladottir - Your touch on everything was the cherry on the cake. Thank you for all the time you put in to this. 

Maria Run, Kristin Lilja, Nicola Valda and Una Rikey. - The models from Elite Models Iceland. Thank  you for your patience whilst I dug out the car that I got stuck and the humor at 4AM. 

I'll be seeing all of you guys soon. Much love, N.

And here are my pictures, yeah, thats right, no more bullshit, here they are. And yes, you can have your hammer back, cuz I nailed it. N.