Category Archives: this and that

this and that

Kalle Björklid: Jenni Vartiainen, Tomuisella tiellä

Posted by jussi on September 27, 2011 at 1:26 pm.

I’ve been meaning to write about Kalle’s new book for quite some time now but haven’t got to it.

I follow KB – as is his nick on a photoforum I got to know his work – so I pretty well knew what to expect from the book. He has not changes his style too much but I get the feeling of a small changes. Color work is more straight forward and the black&whites aren’t just black and white. The general feeling and the composing of the images are almost the same. And I do not  mind because I love his style. He does not leave you cold, you either love or hate the way he shoots.

If nothing else this book is testament to hard work. Sure you can kick your self to shoot some pics on the street and then publish “a art book.” But KB is different. Back in 2005 or so I bumped into KB’s work on a Finnish photoforum. I was sold. Back then he was shooting almost every show on his local rock club. His first tours where not with PMMP but with smaller heavy metal bands. From there to this day its nothing but hard ass work he has been doing! When the rest of us have been sitting on our asses all weekends drinking beer he has been on the back of the tour bus shooting around the clock. During the week he has dayjob to attend to. This is a huge lesson for all of us! This is not for faint of heart, this is freaking hard work. I shoot when I want to shoot – he shoots always.

Dispite the prologue and few comments by Jenni there is no text in the book at all. So this is must buy book for all upcoming music photogs around the globe.

Rubbish cell phone pic from inside the book to get you intressed.

KB’s site and blog

Bookpluss link for you to get his books.

this and that, video

Darkess and Light

Posted by jussi on August 31, 2011 at 1:12 pm.

This wednesday I leave you to the master him self, Richard Avedon.

“If you don’t know who Richard Avedon is come and meet me after the class … so I can slap you!” Zack

YouTube is a photogs fried these days..

this and that

A different view

Posted by jussi on August 29, 2011 at 1:36 pm.

My plans for last week were very simple. Do a shoot. Do the last wedding pics of the season. Shoot a self portrait.

Wait, what – self portrait. Yes.

I was looking through the images on my facebook page and all of the were either at least three years old or worse I was drunk when they were taken. (After party pics, or behind the scenes pics from our bar shoots.)

Iina here has a impressive collection of self portraits and I asked how she does them. Remote control and a tripod were essential tools when shooting a self portrait and I own neither one of them. (I had a tripod but it was just crap and I’ve lost it and don’t care to look for it.) Help wanted!

I knew what kind of pictures I wanted and basically all I needed was someone to aim the camera at me, focus and fire. Iina was up for the job and we went to shoot on my regular locations. First Iina would take the spot I had in mind, I would figure out the lighting when using off camera flash and then we would change places.

Iina had a chance for serious payback time!

To be honest I needed the shooter to be someone I’ve worked with to  know it would be fine and fun -  just to have the slightest chance of looking relaxed it the pics.

I figured that shared credits are in order and we both got all the RAW-files from the shoot. I’m looking forward what she might do with the files… You’ll see them and my edit also.

this and that

The Picture You Can’t Take

Posted by jussi on August 24, 2011 at 7:19 pm.

WTF right?! No people, awful picture all together, whats this doing in the blog?

As we were talking about ideas and location for the formal portraits  Leila and Timo hinted me about a bridge not too far away from the party site. I took the D300 and a 80-200 lens for a walk. I had couple of minutes to do quick location scout and nothing big was going on around the party house so I figured I’d wonder around a bit.

I can’t tell how important location scouting is. I took shorter than ten minute walk and I came out with a game plan. 10 minute walk saved half an hour of going back and forth -fetching gear, thinking about shots, figuring out poses and so on.

So the bridge – actually there were two bridges and we shot on both – but just down stream from the smaller bridge there was this little tiny peninsula floating in light in the creek. It was in quite nice light although I wished I could have put sb800 there but no room for the light and the couple. I wanted the couple to go on to the little palm of light, shoot them from bridge so that their face would be on the shadow side. Before I even walked there my self I knew it just might be off-limits for the bride.

Never the less I pitched the idea for the couple as were shooting and we started to walk down the path by the river. No more than 5 meters after we left the road the bride said that there is no way she could go down there. First part of the path was little muddy grass and rest of it was dusty soil. Ok, bad idea. We are not shooting trash the dress here. We can not rip the dress apart or even get it dirty at four pm when the party is just starting. So no picture.

You never know for sure before you pitch the idea. Not too long ago I walked the bride across muddy grass field. Not to mention my assistant was wearing 10cm heels. I got awesome shot back then. Never would have got it if I would not have pitched it to bride and would have gone with my gut. “She says no anyway no not going to bother her.” Always ask – never hurts -too much.

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Something really studip and fun coming up later in the week..

this and that

Camera 101

Posted by jussi on August 21, 2011 at 1:43 pm.

Olen surkea opettaja, mutta muutama kaveri pyyti että opettaisin heille digijärkkärin perusteet ja menin lupaamaan.

Tavoite on käydä kameran toiminta läpi ja vaihtaa automatiikka manuaalikomennukseen ja antaa tällätavoin enemmän määräysvaltaa omiin kuviin. Perusjutut  käydään eka “höpöttämällä kahvin kera” ja kattomalla pari havainto kuvaa. Lopuksi pieni kuvaus jossa ehkä opittua voi soveltaa.

Ihan vain perusjutut:

-ISO herkkyys (100-200-400…)

-Aukko / Suljinaika (f5,6 @ 1/250s)

-Syväterävyys

-Polttoväli ja sen merkitys

MILLOIN: alustavasti 14.9.2011 keskiviikko ilta .. tarkka aika selviää kun saan tilan.

MISSÄ: Kotkassa, yritän järjestää mariankadulta pienen tilan missä tämän voi jouhevasti järjestää.

HINTA: Ei mitään, ilmanen, kahvit kaupan päälle

First off I am a horrible teacher. But few of my friends asked if I can teach them the camera basics and I said yes. So here we go – again.

The goal is to go through basic camera operations and take you out of the auto mode to manual, to give you more controll over your images. Idea is to go through these things over at coffee and then go out shooting.

Just the basic stuff and how they corralete.

-ISO – setting (100-200-400-800…)

-Aparture / Shutterspeed   (f5,6 @ 1/250th)

-DoF (Depth of Field)

-Focal lenght (what to use and why)

- Very basic on camera flash (why the popup must die.)

WHEN:initial date – might change is 14th / september

HOW LONG: “lecuture” about and hour and the off to shooting join both or just the other..

WHERE: In kotka.. most likely I am trying to get a small spacer from the building I live in to hold this. Just like last time..

COST: not a dime – free for all .. coffee included..