Fashion & Portraits

The last picture of the day.

During the summer I changed my ‘fully served’ Cactus v4 triggers to bit more professional Skyports. Here is why. The picture above would not have happened with the Cactus v4 set.

The glorious life of a photo assistant. There is an assistant in the toilet back right holding a flash to fill the back of the corridor.  No need to adjust stands,  flags and flash brackets. Just told Aija where to point the flash and how to flag it the her right  hand so it does not make a hotspot on the door.

Old Halla factory is a awsome place to work.

Its very difficult and a mess but its also very rewarding when you finaly nail the picture. Its also good place to bring a bigger crew if you need a location for eight people to roam around in. Some shelter from the rain and wind if that happens and plenty of space still so nobody ends up in the backgrounds by accident.

After all there were eight of us.  Janne, Maiju, Eero, Hanna, Johanna, Aija, Anniina and myself. Not bad at all considering that it was just a quick thought. A year ago this would not have happened.

Aija was there to assist, watch and learn. I so hope she got something out of the experiece. Most of my shots would have been next to impossible to do so fluently without her help. She was the light stand that could go where ever was needed. Like into the toilet.

I’ve seen couple of Jannes pics from the day, but not moore. I’d say go to check out his blog but the last post is two months old, or three.No use, can not find anything new there.

We shot with Heidi for about four hours or so. I don’t know how but I got 20+ decent frames in that time. Must have been a record of sorts. Okay some duplicates because I could not decide between the color and black and white.

So there more pictures in these few last post than ever before. More on flickr and facebook.

Day before yesterday I was again talking to Janne online and asked if he would come to Kotka for a similar shoot if I can find a model. Too many if’s so I had my doubts. Two hours and dozen phone calls and mesages later we had three models and an assistant who all agreed to come for a quick shoot. I invited two more photogs to come around and Maiju Siekkinen (the stylist) had a day off so she tagged along to shoot some pictures as well

Maiju had some great images  and I hope that she does not take up photography too seriously because I’d be without of a work very quickly.  Useless.

Anyways, more to come and two wedding albums still to waiting to be published here.. ouh my.

I just came home and its almost midnight. I shot the last wedding of the summer tonight and had a blast. At one point the bride came and said that “you are off duty, start drinking!” I took couple of beers but shot pictures untill I left.  Can’t help it anymore. Im a lost cause.

Anyways  before I get to Matti and Katjas wedding pictures here are couple of images of heidi..

I was chatting with Janne online on tuesday and he happened to mention that there was a model just around the corner. They know eachother from school and figured that she just might agree to work with us for a location shoot. Before even letting him to discuss the possible dates I said that I’ll be there tomorrow around four if she Heidi says yes.

All of the sudden I was in a rush to recharge the batteries.

Janne posted me picture of Heidi and I thought of two things. One: I really have to screw things up to not get a really good picture of her to my portfolio. Two: how the hell will do pictures that are good enough for her portfolio. I do not want to waste her time to shoot crap that she can not use!

I think we were in Ullanlinna in Helsinki, Im not sure. Picture snapper from Kotka in Helsinki is pertty much disaster in terms of whereabouts. I really like to scout the locations because it save time. A lot of time! Our plan was different. Just walk around a bit and see what we find and work with that.

Im at ease in any location these days so that did not worry me.  With a model like Heidi you do not want to waste time walking around looking for backdrops.  Dispite all my fears it all went so well. We found couple of locations quickly and Heidi was ablsolutely perfect. No need warm up or get comfortable with the camera. Actualy one the frames used was the first frame of the aka the chimp frame.

Thank you both Janne and Heidi. What a day!

More to come..