Fashion & Portraits

The Espoo shootfest on 28th of Feb left me overwhelmed. Reachign for last the thread of reality, could this be true?  The rude awakening came on monday morning. Good part was that the whole event was not just in my head, it actualy happend!

Our models fought the long day through pain and suffering (almost literaly ) and Noora worked at a feverish pitch to get a makeup after makeup done. My hat is is off for you! The eforts left me feeling quilty as my job seemed to be too easy.

I brought  compact camera to shoot behind the scenes clips and snaps for the blog. Im not into video too much but the ‘home videos’ give you pretty good idea of what we did. A pic of maijus car trunk. Nooo, we did not have anything extra with us. Even forgot couple of bags at home.

More pictures dropping in to the blog during the week. I have couple of more to photoshop before I ship it all out.

1 video: shows all the cool shoes we shot. They might classified as a medevil torture equipment but they do look cool!
2 video: Sandra shooting Sini
3 video: Janne shooting
4 video: The gear – all I had with me to shoot fits in a very professional Ikea-bag. Notice the second blue bag = two ezyboxes.

bts klip 1 at feb 28th 2019 from jussi lopperi on Vimeo.

bts clip 2, from the shoot espoo at fev 28th 2010 from jussi lopperi on Vimeo.

bts clip 3, from the shoot in espoo at feb 28th 2010 from jussi lopperi on Vimeo.

bts clip 4, from the shoot in espoo at feb 28th 2010 from jussi lopperi on Vimeo.

Youtube – the salvation of the dull days! The photography videos online are huge souce of inspisration and education for me. Sure I could spend my evenings watching Heros or something on TV but the photography has pretty much taken over my whole life…

Yesterday I came across a interview clips with the legends like Walter Iooss and Albert Watson and I could not stop. Played them back over and over again hanging on every word..

Albert..who? Google!

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Melissa Rodwell had a blog post about talet that you should check out if you are in fashion photography.

Krista practicly made the pics. I pushed the button.

The styling is of course by Maiju Siekkinen.

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..

Little Metallica reference..

Fourth dress of the day and I  was feeling too good. Comfortable, and followed by a rude awakening (hey secod refernce of the post) results to a brain freeze.

The first three dresses worked like a charm  with my lighting but the fourth dress. Ouh, I could not get anything out of it. Nothing! Luckily I started with  easy going window light to save my ass (sloppy there as well and had to do a horizontal crop of the vertical image). I figured that if the model is dark and rock but the dress is not and lighting is it would all even out. It just did not work. Thus no decent images of the fourth dress.

I could have gone to the studio and shoot a second  butt saver too, but why do that when I knew Mika had one? If this was a client shoot I would have done something safe. No decent pic of the dress is not an option if you are paid for the pics. I wasn’t, so I let it go.

Joked about the whole scene to Suvi, and said “try to look like you are living in the States in the fifties and you are waiting for your husband to come home from work. Dinner is cooked and baby on the way.”  Clad she laughed, otherwise she would have killed me..