Fashion & Portraits

Yet another video clip shot with the lumix. Went around the location and teased Maijus assistant Heidi. Did this all day long so you can imagine how much fun she had working with me.

bts from jussi lopperi on Vimeo.

Its laid back sunday and Im watching ‘the shot’ on tv. What a waist of time! For f**k sake, why even bother.

The pic below is shot with a lumix something camera.  Usualy its in the bag only for the video feature but it was the only camera with me on new year…

After the weekend on 13-14th of Feb my head was full of thoughts related to photography. And I have to write about one question in particular. Whats my image? Whats my style? This came up after shooting few frames at the studio and shooting along with Janne at the sprint rally event.

Its being said that photography is the easiest artform to learn but the hardest  to delevope your own unique style. I do not have my own style yet, but its getting there.

Two things I have to mention that should go without saying. One: Lack of skill is not a style! One does not have a style if one does not know how to shoot differently or does not have a clue what to do in the first place. Two: Copying others is not a style. I can not shoot like DaveHill and say ‘well, thats my style too.’ Its not, its just lame and in Daves case its almost a copyright offense.

I started to think of the style when looking at the images shot in  the studio. They did not feel or look like mine. I knew how I did them and I could  easily repeat them if asked (with similar gear I might ad.) I just shot with Mikas studio lights and made few adjustments to his setup. The pics did not feel right.

In the rally event I shamelessly took a almost indentical pic with Janne. Needles to say I will not show it here just like I woun’t showthe studio pic. I looked what he was doing and repeated it knowing what he was after. Ironicly my D200 literaly froze and I did not get the movement nor the one wheel up in the air like he. The point remains. The image has nothing to do with me, its a copy of someone elses photo.

The gear plays a funny part when building or trying to find your own personal style. The gear is here for us to use, not to define us. Do I prefer small softboxes and location shoots because I do not have a big octa and a studio? No, I do not think so. I’d have a beatydish and strip lights at the studio anyways. Im not going to buy the gear that I know I do not need for the images I want to create.  Still right now my gear is too limited for me to claim ‘I have my own style!’ How can I say that ring flash fill is not a part of my style if I’ve never tested one properly? And no, I do have to test every single peace of a equipment out there. But ringflash is very intresting and could suite me fine as a very low power and cotrolable fill.

As a conjuction to the money for the photographs post the style issue has its own twist. As I said, a lack of skill is not a style. I can’t go to a client with a underexposed b&w images and say ’my style,period’, when the client wants a colorfull highkey images.  Same goes for the gear. Client does not care if you only have a ezybox and they want images  have to be lit with 6ft octa. ‘My style…’ right, and the client goes to another photog who can deliver.

So whats my style?

I don’t have one yet but I know what I don’t want it to be. I’m on my way..

Yeah.. I promised some pics and a rally video.

Ok, deal. Four

pics and five second klip..

Rally event.. from jussi lopperi on Vimeo.

The end of the shoot. Almost anyways.  I missed the last outfit on Suvi, but thats fine. There is never enough time to shoot all you want and make all the mistakes you need to make.

Again thanks to everyone Mika, Eero, Suvi, Maiju, Heidi and Krista. Awsome day, amazing punch on people..  its getting harder and harder to top these days.

The day gave more than just couple of pretty pictures but more about that later.

Next stop a rally video and portrait from the ‘dance of the old’ from local highschool..