Wzzup???

Yeah, what is up?
I know it's been more than a month since my last post, and I haven't been very active on the blog during the summer either, but for you who are still browsing my blog for updates; I guess I owe you at least a status update.

First of all it's autumn going on winter over here and that's something I love because it creates some really beautiful landscapes. During winter at high latitudes the sun is very low during the entire day, meaning you can shoot against the sun and get really cool effects without getting up crazy early in the morning. Just check out these snapshots I took last week while visiting my parents.



I've also been working very hard the last few months on finishing my master thesis at the Royal Institute of Techonolgy here in Stockholm and today I'm only a few bureaucratic steps away from having my degree in hand. At the same time I made the decision that what's best for my photography is for me to get "a real job" so that I can afford to focus on my personal projects and my portfolio.

Pursuing a commercial photography career have shifted my focus from the joy of photography to stress factors such as, market demand, trademark matching, positioning, marketing, pricing etc. I'm very much an entrepreneur and I find all those subjects very interesting, but that's not where I find the value in photography. So, I'm officially going to join the proud army of weekend warriors but I will of course keep posting stuff on the blog and fashion and portraits are still where I find the most joy in photography so that's what I will keep focusing on.




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American Vintage Second Project

Model: Johanna "Hanna" W. at Synk Casting
Styling, Makeup & Hair: Emilie Karlberg
Wardrobe: Gina Holdar

Since Gina over at Americana.se is such a cool person we decided early after the last American Vintage project (you find it here) to do another American Vintage fashion shoot this summer. This is the result. I actually shoot it about a month ago and finished the retouching a couple of weeks ago but I didn't get around posting it on the blog until now for various reasons. In general I will most likely make blog posts at a lower pace this fall and early Winter due to reasons I will hopefully explain in a coming blog post.

Anyhow, as always I'm very happy with the result (I do lot's of failed photo projects but that's something I won't share on the blog). The pictures are perhaps not as strong as a series as I had hoped for but some of the individual pictures are just outstanding in my opinion. I aimed to further extend my skills working with natural light and toned down atmospheres and I think we hit it spot on. At the day of the shoot it was only me and Emilie and Hanna and we made up a great little team and at least I think it was a very laid back but still fun shoot.





A few more images after the jump












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Really cool music video / interactive web experiment

Check out:
thewildernessdowntown.com/

Music is "the wilderness downtown" by Arcade fire, Read the full post

The business of Photography

This is a very large topic, large enough to be covered by plenty of excellent books. I'm actually going to start off by recommending buying or borrowing the book "Best business practices for photographers" by John Harrington. I'm sure there are plenty of other books out there but this one I've read more than once and I can really recommend it.

But what is the business of photography? I'm not going to try and say I know the secret everyone else is missing, the harsh reality is probably the opposite, but I'm still young enough in the business to not be to upset about it.

I've been serious about my photography for a little more than a year now, I've loved photography for plenty of years and I started with studio photography a couple of years ago, but it was about a year ago that I knew I wanted to do something serious about it. With that in mind, here are some of my insights. And I know for a fact that I'm not alone with these insights.

Aimless business plan.
A business plan is crazy important and, at least to my experience, one thing that doesn't work is to live by the sentiment, "I love photography I'll go to any lengths to be shooting anything". Don't get me wrong, I'll shoot almost anything for money, but where I invest my time, energy and marketing is very narrow.

Passive marketing
Waiting for someone to discover your website for example will take forever, since I came online I have not been contacted once due to a random visit to my website, and I have had plenty of visitors.

E-mail marketing
Sending out masses of emails dosen't work. I spent weeks digging up e-mail adresses to some 50 art directors and photo editors in Stockholm and also some 100 record labels in Sweden. I've used those email lists a few times, thus far I've recieved 2 replies where they politely declined my services but wished me good luck.

E-mail communication with clients.
Sweden have since the beginning of internet been one of the most well connected countries in the world. Yet it's only a small percentage of the clients I've needed to communicate information to that knows how to use and behave over the net. OBS! I don't blame my clients, I've shifted my methods towards normal snail mail and telephone even though it's uncomfortable and expensive.

I'm sure that I could continue this list for a long while, If you have anything else that would fit this list, please share it in the comments.

Right now I have to figure out and work more on methods that do work and I will share some positive strategies in a later post. For my next post however I'm thinking abut writing about pricing and the economy of photography. Read the full post

Why so few blog posts during the summer?

Work & money!

It was a clearly outspoken goal for me to generate enough revenue from my photography this spring/summer to at least break even and perhaps also pay part of my rent. The harsh reality is that I failed that goal, I managed to land a couple of assignments paying for some of the gear but the numbers are still way in the red, so I felt I needed to take a summer job when I got the chance earlier this summer.

So, the last couple of weeks I've been working from 07:00 till 16:00 plus overtime with maintenance at a major steel industry located in the town where I grew up and my parents still live. It's messy and dirty and most of the times the work is heavy enough for me to skip working out afterwards without feeling bad about it ;-) But it's been a good time and I have lot's of energy now for more photography and blog writing. (as well as a cash buffer)

The major problem with me working and blogging is that 90% of my blog posts are written in the early morning hours, that's when I'm the most inspired and my thoughts are the clearest. Due to the work Iv'e been a bit too tired to come up with interesting blog posts in general and I've also been a bit too pressed for time to have done to much interesting stuff with my photography that I could write about. The little photography I've done (that's not unfit for the blog) I have shared.

Anyhow, I have a blog post under construction where I will share some of my thoughts about the business side of photography, and I'm on my last week of work now so I'll be back in full soon.
Stay tuned.

P.S To be perfectly honest (which I always am of course) the release of the computer game Starcraft 2 has played a part in me not dedicating enough time on the blog, but hey! We all deserve vacation from the real life some times don't we, and who's gonna save the universe if I don't do it?

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Photo shoot with Johanna W.

model: Johanna "Hanna" W. , Synk Casting
Makup: Christina C.
Photography & retouching: Me Mårten Keijser



I've been working a lot with various non photography related stuff the last couple of weeks and this project was such a great break from all that. We didn't really have any opportunity for this project to create something major with a big production and lot's of planning. We sort of, as a team, just threw ourselves into the project, shooting and experimenting while letting fate, instinct or whatever guide us right. I think we were guided right.

Johanna is such a great model, no problem expanding the comfort zone and "freaking out" in front of the camera. And despite what it might look like on this other series below, throughout the shoot she was always 1 sec away from a happy laughter, that sort of positive energy is so valuable that I can't really put it in words.

Anyhow, I hope you like the result, I'm very happy with it at least.







P.S Once more I say, You gotta love the add noise feature of Adobe Camera Raw. Read the full post

BTS-pictures from today

Haha, I don't write a word in weeks and now publish two posts the same day, I have to get better at planning this blog. Well I thought I'd give you guys a few BTS-pictures from today as soon as possible. It wen't really good and I'll present the team and give the full story and resulting images in a week or so.









P.S Apologies for only giving you guys BTS-pictures from the makup part of the project, when shooting I have a hard time focusing on anything but the shoot and the model, but I will try and take more pictures of the preparations etc. next time. Read the full post

Still gone fishing?

It's been slow I know, but I actually have a portfolio project going down today. Still I'm afraid that during the summer months I'm not married to my computer in the same way as during winter so my summer reports here on the blog have suffered. Maybe I should apologize for that but I'm sure you guys understand.

Here are, however, a few nice nature photographs from a short trip I did last weekend, and their is a bunch more stuff coming up.







P.S You gotta love the new add noise feature in the latest release of Adobe Camera Raw.! Read the full post

Gone fishing! (almost at least)

I don't really know what to share on the blog right now, I've been dealing with a bunch of important but not so blog friendly tasks the last couple of weeks so I don't have that much interesting stuff or juicy news to share. And as it's summer in Sweden everybody leaves for vacation and the general pace of things gets crippled. I'm determined on getting a few portfolio projects done this summer however so don't loose hope.

Right now though, I thought I would share some test shots I did with an old camera of mine that I converted for IR-photography (it captures all the light in the infra read spectrum as well as normal light that you and I see. The colors you can see in the pictures below are added in photoshop as IR-photography renders monochrome pictures.

It was a "just for fun"-test, but maybe I will us IR-photography in a more serious project later.





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Light is interesting

As a photographer you become obsessed with light, it doesn't matter if you are full feathered studio animal or never touches strobes and other artificial lighting. I have plowed through my fair share of Physics classes at my university so I can assure you it's not purely philosophical to argue that a photo is nothing but a representation of how the light (or photons) hits the cameras film or sensor. It's all there is to it.

What we photographers do is work with the characteristics of the photons and their final representation, changing their path (using lenses), intensity (working with exposure), wavelength (editing color) etc. etc.




It's a dangerous trap however to believe that the technical aspects of photography and lighting etc is the thing that makes a great photograph great. My understanding of light and how to adapt, create and work with it is nothing more than a tool for me to convey stories or messages. If I can't create an emotional response (be it any kind of emotion) to the viewer my images are worthless. At least that's how I feel (but I don't differentiate the viewer, some times I create images only for myself or my family and that's just as important).

It's a couple of weeks ago now that I took the pictures I show here. I was walking around in stockholm with my camera, I was scouting for a fashion project so I didn't really expect to create anything nice. When I left my home for the subway the sky was dark and it was rain in the air so naturally I thought the images were gonna be boring and bad. But, when I arrived and exited the subway I realized the dark sky created a great and almost surreal atmosphere and I put some extra effort to try and capture that.

By telling you this I wish to convince you that even though I say I know a lot of physical and technical things about light and how to work with it I can still be blind to obvious aspects of it from time to time. This time I'm glad I opened my eyes and realized that the weird light created a great atmosphere. So: Remember to keep your eyes open and not try to predict everything.

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Red Cloud, a fashion video project

Model: Brent Chua , Ford Models NYC
Styling & Design: Emilie Karlberg
Makeup: Emmy Öhrn
Photography & Editing: Mårten Keijser (that's me ^_^ )


Editing video always takes a longer time than still images and I've been extra busy/overworked the last week with a bunch off stuff. But for those of you who waited with anticipation I hope it was worth it. This is a very short video that was kind of spontaneously put together during the shoot I had with Brent last week. I'm very glad we managed to pull it off and I am (as always I think) very happy with the results.

It's not a film with a storyline or twist at the end or anything classic and thought-trough like that. The idea was rather to make something that would translate one kind emotion to the viewer and in this case I was aiming for an emotion of restlessness or uneasiness.

I would love to know what you felt when you saw this clip, it's always easy to hit the comments ;-) Read the full post

Back to basics, fashion session

Model: Brent Chua , Ford Models NYC
Styling & Design: Emilie Karlberg
Makeup: Emmy Öhrn
Photography & Retouch: Mårten Keijser (that's me ^_^ )

Totally cool project, it had everything, a great looking model, a great mua who dared go all in on this crazy look and of course a great stylist who is the one that deserves most of the credit for the idea.

I don't think shooting with Brent can be boring or annoying he has such a great personality, but this day had a bit of a sad atmosphere as it was his last day in Sweden. Hopefully our paths will cross again. I know they will.

Click the images to see larger versions and if you have an opinion about the images, please share it in the comments.









P.S There's another part of this project that I'm still working on, keep an eye on this blog if you are curious as I will share it here as soon as it's done. Read the full post

BTS images from yesterdays fashion shoot

I will post the full story and the final images as soon as possible, I have so much material to go through right now but will hopefully be done by wednesday.








For you fans out there, can you spot the model? Hit the comments if you can!
;-) Read the full post

Current status, working hard

The day before yesterday I did portraits of High School graduates during their final prom from about 16:00 until 23:15. Shoot some 1500 frames of a bunch of great looking young adults, sorted and edited that down to around 500 images yesterday and today I will start working on the distribution. Today I'm also doing all the practical preparations for a potentially super great portfolio project tomorrow. Will have plenty of pictures and stuff to show soon. Read the full post

Copyright and the fashion industry

As a photographer I'm naturally very interested in discussions on copyright and business policies and culture. I just recently came across this very interesting TED-talk about the basically non existing copyright protection for fashion creations and how that affects the industry. I share with you, Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture

Read the full post

Museum Of Bad Art - MOBA

"Without bad art there would be no good art"
via gelconference.com

Louise Sacco at Gel 2010 (Museum Of Bad Art - MOBA) from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

I came across this vid through the A Photo Editor blog. I watched the entire vid and It was so pleasant and insightful that I felt the urge to share it with you guys. I don't know why and how I should interoperate my feelings but I felt very encouraged. ;-) Read the full post

Practicing your photographic vision

To my experience one of the best methods to learn lighting is to look at great photographs and take them appart mentally. If you are a decent photographer I'm sure you've done that a couple of times. What about the other building blocks of the image? When I look at a great picture today I try to decipher it's message and then look at how the other parts of the image adds up to convey that message. The look of the models, how they are positioned, what the styling elements and clothes look like etc.

If you haven't attempted to deconstruct an image like that I suggest you do. And of course, I'm very narrow in my preferences but this method can be applied to all type of photography and not only fashion and portraits.

And most importantly, this is a tool to understand an important part of photography. I'm not suggesting that you should build your style and vision based on the style of other photographers, your personal style must always represent what's unique about you. Read the full post

Working with a vision improves my photography

It's my belief that my artistic vision is the most important tool I will ever posses. I'm always reluctant to give advice about what to do or how to act in order to become a successful photographer. I'm not yet successful so there's a chance I'm just treading water in the wrong end of the pool.

But I'm totally convinced that to reach a "decent level of success" one need to learn how to work with a vision. A technically perfect image might be good or even very good but it will never be greater or more valuable than the message it translates to the viewer. I think of lighting, retouching, exposure, angles etc. etc. as tools to shape the message of the image, and my vision is my ability to see what I need to do in order to create that message.

If it's your own message as an artist or that of a client or a common message shared with other creatives of course depends on each project, but the photographic vision is never less important.

The ability to improvise and act on the unforeseeable is of course very valuable. What I'm trying to get at is the fact that if I don't know what to create when I'm standing there with my camera in hand (substitude camera with pen, guitar or whatever you use in your creativity) chances are pretty high that what I create won't be of any value, not even to myself. And most clients are definitely not to happy about spending money on something they aren't sure will pay off.

How to master working with a vision, Swedish translation and more in the full post click

How can one master working with a vision? I think the answer is simply to practice. Practice, practice and practice. For me it's not enough to use light and retouching and other technical things, I must incorporate models (their mood, the way they interact...), props and scene elements etc. etc. in my vision.

Also, one thing I've learned through experience is that it's almost impossible to attract the attention and participation of the other creative personalities that you rely on if you don't have a vision that you share. Today I'm absolutely not considered an authority in the business and I'm poor as church mouse so I can't use money as an incentive, but if I come up with a good enough idea it's actually possible to pull of a shoot every now and then. Hopefully it will lead to me getting good enough to actually start landing assignments.

I find this topic very interesting, if you have any thoughts of your own I encourage you to share them in the comments.

Coming up on the blog are a couple of articles on practicing your photographic (artistic) vision. Stay tuned via RSS or the social media service of your choice, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Google Buzz.

Summary in Swedish / kort summering på Svenska:
Jag är övertygad om att min fotografiska vision (visualiseringsförmåga) är det absolut viktigaste verktyg jag någonsin kommer ha som fotograf. En tekniskt perfekt bild kan vara bra eller rentav riktigt bra men den kommer aldrig vara värdefullare eller starkare än budskapet den förmedlar.

Som jag ser det är exponering, ljus, retuschering, vinklar etc. verktyg för att förmedla det budskapet, och min fotografiska vision eller visualiseringsförmåga är min förmåga att se vad jag behöver göra för att skapa budskapet i en bild.

Jag finner detta ämne väldigt intressant, om du har några egna tankar vill jag uppmuntra dig att ge en kommentar till detta inlägg.

Jag kommer inom kort att lägga ut ett par artiklar om hur man kan öva sin fotografiska vision. För att inte missa något rekommenderar jag att du följer mig via RSS eller den socialmedia-kanal du föredrar Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Google Buzz.
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Current music video favorite

As a blogger there's a constant pressure to always be in on the latest trends and this video has been around for a year and it's widely popular. But I'm not embarrassed to share it today and say that I discovered it just last week after a recommendation from a friend, it's good enough to be shared anyways.

I can't put any good words on it but I think this video & song just radiates of emotion and feeling. I share with you, Fever Ray with 'When I grow up'.



For the full list of videos that have made it to my "Current music video favorite"-post, click here. Read the full post

To add a Flattr button to your blogger or blogpsot blog

Like I said in my post from yesterday, I signed up for flattr because I believe it's a great way for me as a blog reader and consumer of online art to be able to show my appreciation by giving actual (but small) cash contributions in a very easy and comfortable way (not having to sing on paypal or anything, just a click).

This tips is for users of googles blogspot service. To make it so that a unique flattr button is created for every blog post one have to copy a special code into the blogger template layout code. The original source of the code is Mattias Bomelin, check his blog post here and give him a flattr if you find it useful.

Nicolas Gramlich used the code and wrote a bit more "noob-friendly" guide as to how and where to put the code, here.

What I did was to paste the piece of code below just after the line that says:

<div class='post-footer'>

<div expr:id='"flattr_summary_" + data:post.id' style='display: none;'>

<data:post.body/>

</div>

<div expr:id='"flattr_title_" + data:post.id' style='display: none;'>

<data:post.title/>

</div>

<span style='float:left; margin:5px;'>

<script type='text/javascript'>

var flattr_uid = '_____'; // Replace underscores with Flattr ID

var flattr_tle = document.getElementById('flattr_title_<data:post.id/>').innerHTML;

var flattr_dsc = document.getElementById('flattr_summary_<data:post.id/>').innerHTML;

var flattr_cat = 'text';

var flattr_lng = 'en_GB';

var flattr_tag = '<b:if cond='data:post.labels'><b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'><data:label.name/><b:if cond='data:label.isLast != "true"'>,</b:if></b:loop></b:if>';

var flattr_url = '<data:post.url/>';

//var flattr_btn = ''; // for normal button

var flattr_btn = 'compact'; // for compact button

</script>

<script src='http://api.flattr.com/button/load.js' type='text/javascript'/>

</span>

Remember to insert your own flattr user number. You can change where you place the code in the template if you wan't to change the placement of the button (but you have to understand a bit of html for that). Of course, before you do anything save a backup copy of the template code and you have to check the "Expand Widget Templates"-checkbox. Read the full post

Flattr, useful if you have a blog or share art online

Maybe you've noticed the recent addition of a Flattr button on the bottom of my blog posts. I'm helping out with the beta testing of the all new Flattr service.

It's basically a "click if you like"-button that can be linked to content you share on the internet, blog posts, forum posts or online art etc. The perk is that it doubles as a micro payment service. To be able to click or to have your own buttons you have to be a member. As a member you pay a minimum of 2€ a month and that money gets distributed to the ones you've clicked. If I only find two blog posts I really like one month and decide to click them, the owners of those blogs would receive the hefty sum of 1€ each. It's not much but mathematically it's infinitely more than nothing.

I decided to give it a try, not that I expect or plan on making any real money out of this blog, I mainly wan't to be able to show my appreciation to all the bloggers and contributors to forums and art scenes online.

For me to be able to give you your fair share of my 2€ a month do check out the Flattr website and sign up for an invitation to the beta membership. Once you are a member give me a shout in the comments to this post, or through any other means. I'm finding it a hard time finding flattr buttons in the areas of the internet that I

Remember though that as of today they charge a 19% service fee, 10% on deposits and 10% on withdrawals. I'm hoping, and betting, this fee will be reduced otherwise I might decide to leave their service, but I really find it a good initiative worthy of a serious attempt.

And also if you don't find anything you like, your money will be sent to charity automatically. Read the full post

American vintage fashion story

Model: Brent Chua , Ford Models NYC
Model: Anna H. Nouveaumodels
Styling, Makeup & Hair: Emilie Karlberg
Wardrobe: Gina Holdar

Just finished the retouching and I'm so happy with the results. This is a project I've been wanting to do for a long time and it was quite an adventure to make it happen so I'll share the story here.

Me and Emilie met the charismatic and enthusiastic Gina at a fashion event in Stockholm about 2 months ago and we soon decided to do a vintage fashion story with outfits put together from Ginas huge collection of American vintage clothes.





I knew what look I wanted to go for and realized that first of all we had to wait a few weeks for warmer weather. When the weather was ok it turned out this project was the type of project where it was impossible to match the schedules of the models and everybody involved. It's crucially important that especially your models are not only great but that they also add to the look you are after and nothing else. Thinking about it, I will probably do a dedicated blog-post about matching models with your projects later. Click the link to read the full story and see the rest of the pictures



After a couple of failed attempts to set up a team I was about ready to give up thinking this shoot idea had upset the gods of photography or something. But! Along comes Brent, a super experienced and extremely cool model originally based in NYC now temporarily stationed in Sweden, we had some common internet friends and we quickly decided to do a project together.

He's a Crazy cool guy who brings enough positive energy to power a nuclear reactor and infront of the camera... well you can see the pictures for yourselves. Anna from Nouveaumodels is also a star in my book and she did a great job keeping up with the energy level we were shooting at.

This entire shoot was another "outside of my comfort zone"-project, kind of to explore what I can do with my style. The weather was perfect at the day of the shoot, thin clouds (not thick) over the entire sky creating a perfect mix of hardness and softness in the light. I did bring some modifiers and battery strobes but never even attempted to use them. My job for this gig was to encourage the right interaction and atmosphere and just be there with my camera (from the right angles, keeping the right exposure and depth of field etc. etc. of course)



And no, Emilie isn't really a makeup-artist, she had to step in and cover for the mua that originally was on the team but who in the last minute couldn't make it. Sure I steered the entire look away from relying to much on makeup (which was probably for the better) but she did a great job and all I can say is photo-gods who don't want things to happen 0 me 1. ;-)

What I mainly wan't to share with this story is the following, if things feel imposible just keep working, perhaps you have to find new angles or adjust your ideas but there's always a solution and as long as you're convinced the final product is worth it you should keep on working. If you don't know why you are investing som much time and energy and money in what you are doing you have a far greater problem than muas or models not showing up. (This philosophy lesson of course applies in any field not only photography).






In Swedish/på Svenska
Artikeln beskriver lite alla turerna kring att organisera plåtningen som resulterade i modebilderna ni ser här. Den blev lite lång så jag bestämde att inte göra någon översättning direkt, men om du verkligen skulle uppskatta det så kan du skicka ett mail eller skriva en kommentar så kan jag sätta mig och göra det.
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BTS images from yesterdays fashion shoot

Here are a few BTS-images from yesterdays fashion adventure. It was a great shoot with a great team and I'll share the full story with links to all involved and some of the final images when the retouching is done.

Cheers



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