I wrote some poetry.

It is time to feel the joy of blogging once more. It is strange how much I love this medium yet rarely seem to take advantage of it. I will try to get better at that. But I shall dwell on that no more. To give a little bit of backstory to how this poem came about I suppose I should say that since the end of August I have been studying photography in the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. It has so far been an incredible ride full of amazing people, lots of creativity, chaos, art, struggle and joy. Now the poem started as an assignment for a course of mine called image development. The assignment was to do anything apart from a traditional photograph. So I wrote a poem. It started with the frustration I sometimes have of citizens not being involved in society, blaming others for the struggles in their life while at the same time hoping those "others" will also fix said problems. The most obvious context for this is obviously our current political landscape but it does not necessarily have to only revolve around politics, this phenomenon occurs in plentiful also in more intimate relationships. It is a state of ignorance so damaging that the result is we have no control over our fate, and when this occurs on a marco level, no control over the fate of a large part of the human species. 

 

When ignorance protrudes our skin
the soul has no master,
and a nescient man is born.

No room for the wise.
No room for blossom,
so halted we remain.

Find your soul
and be its master
so our fate can have a captain.

 

Or to put it more bluntly, it is time to get our shit together. The western, more or less democratic world has no excuses for blunders in progress. Mishaps in our society, government and private lives are a direct result of the decisions we make as families, groups and constituencies. Do your part or forever hold your silence. I don't say that lightly, and I certainly don't say that to confront you just for the sake of it. I say it because I want people to realise that the potential for this world, our world, is so high if only we took the time to educate, inform and get involved.
 

 

 

The three Latvians.

Recently I had somewhat of an improvised shoot with Kris. Toms and Ricards kindly came to help. It's not really that the shoot was supposed to be improvised, it was just that the planning I thought I had made didn't really comply with reality. I had seen the location months ago and I thought I remembered it fairly well but it was actually quite a bit different to what I had remembered. This and the fact that we ended up shooting a little bit later than anticipated meant that the things I had planned were well... a little bit useless. 

Despite the shortcomings in planning, we managed to take some stellar photos. You see, when you have people around you that are fun to be with it's not that hard to just be spontaneous and come up with something on the go. I think the image right below in fact is one of my favourite images I have ever taken. The original location was under a viaduct but there was a ladder that went up to the E40 so naturally, we climbed it. We were probably there for about 15 minutes but I think these 15 minutes resulted in one of the best images I have ever taken. It's got this sort of vibe about it that I haven't quite achieved before. It's hard to put into words... the image just sort of speaks to me.

Kris and I found a ladder to the middle of E40.

The following photo is perhaps closest to what I originally planned. I wanted to capture the face in a mirror and also capture the reflections in the background. The latter part didn't quite work as we started the photoshoot so late. Nevertheless, the photo actually came up looking pretty good. Not what I had in mind, but good nevertheless. I really like the smoky edges and while editing I found that this sort of sharp black and white look worked well.

Mirrors are fun.

This next photo appeared out of pure spontaneity. Kris was sitting on the staircase that went up to the highway and he was holding onto the railings. There are so many little imperfections about this photo that I wish weren't there but there's something about it that's a little bit special. The expression on his face is just kind of... mesmerising.

An interesting one.

An interesting one.

This shoot was one of many imperfections and the planning for it on my part was garbage. That being said, we still managed to create some great looking images and I think that's largely down to working with people who are patient and who don't get frustrated when things aren't going as planned. It's very difficult to produce something that's shit if you and your team just go with the flow.

Lets talk about noise.

It's time to voice my opinions about noise. The inevitable evil that many photographers believe will destroy the message of their photograph. Nobody cares. Honestly, nobody, apart from us the photography snobs care about noise. I shoot at ISO 6400 (max ISO for my camera) all the time with my D800 and the images look pretty grainy, however what's actually important still remains intact. Noise is natural when shooting in certain environments and it really doesn't do much harm to the image. If your photograph has any chance of being good then trust me, pushing up that ISO another few thousand units won't change that a bit. It's way more important to worry about the how the light hits your subject, how you frame your image, what kind of a pose your model is in etc than worry about technicalities such as ISO. These settings are there to allow you to shoot at different environments so don't be afraid to use them. A little grain never killed anybody.

PS: This little mini-rant was written because I have found that not being restricted by the capabilities of my equipment has allowed for some of the best creative endeavours in my photography. Just felt like sharing as I had five minutes to spare.

 

Woah, 2016 happened.

Woah, 2016 is here - a lot has happened since I lost wrote one of these blog posts. Lets talk a little.

Ludovica

I had a shoot with Ludovica at the end of October and I still haven't written about it - better late than never I guess? The idea was to take advantage of the beautiful autumn colours, the leaves that are falling from the trees - it's a beautiful sight and makes for some rather pleasing photography. We ended up having Ludovica lay on the ground surrounded by leaves. The corset she was wearing and our wannabe skirt, which was actually a big scarf, worked out really well for the outfit. Ludovica has this really awesome sophisticated vibe to her and it worked incredibly well on this shoot. Admittedly, my confidence did get the better of me on the shoot in one aspect of things. See, as the shot is taken top-down, I had to climb onto a ladder to take the shot. This meant that there was no real way of taking the photo without also having the ladder be in the shot. I was confident I could easily brush this out in photoshop after but to my great regret, it didn't turn out so easy. I ended up having to borrow a part of her arm and her legs from another photo - something I'm really not too happy with but as my confidence got the better of me I just had to roll with the punches.

“I get scared when I lay down in bed,
When all my thoughts run through my head,
That is the time when they aren’t confined,
When I am a slave of my own mind.”
— Julie Piper

I loved the poem that went along with the photo, it was written by a friend of mine, Julie Piper. The first time I read it I immediately related, I think most of us will. It worked perfectly for the shoot and it's really cool to collaborate with other creative, likeminded people on these projects to make them be something they could otherwise not be. 

A sneaky little behind the scenes look into how the image was taken.

Taking photos of leaves...

Part of my curriculum at school this year is a course called "infography" (basically photography + the computer side too) and it has pushed me to take photos of things I normally wouldn't do. My style is quite precise and you wouldn't normally see me taking photos of leaves. The task was called "material studies" and this is what I came up with.

It's just so freaking silly yet somehow it's also artsy enough to be considered art. I'll leave it up to you to make some conclusions about it yourself.

Stealing the souls of my teachers

Although I did this project for infography, this was something I had wanted to do for a very long time already and it would have happened sooner or later even without the info course. I love the idea of storytelling through images, it's a wonderful medium where the viewer has so much freedom to fill in the gaps him/herself, you can just let your creativity run wild but at the same time there's an obvious story there that one can't look past. As a student, school is a place where I spend a lot of my time. I wanted to tell that story and I love the fact that my teachers were so incredibly awesome and let me take photos of them in class and actually share them with all of you wonderful people. I have been a very lucky person: even though I think there are some things drastically wrong with our current education system, my teachers keep me going, every single day, because I can see how passionately they do their job. The amount of energy they pour into teaching their classes is incredible and it is, without a shadow of a doubt, the single most important reason why I have motivation to do somewhat okay in school. They create an atmosphere where you want to do better, to learn more. My teachers are probably the biggest reasons why I pull my shit together for subjects that I have zero interest in. Education in today's society is flawed in many ways but at least in my school, the teachers, the people, the human connection is irreplaceable. 

I'm fascinated by photo stories and that's another big reason why I wanted to make this project happen. Photographs are an extremely unique medium for telling stories, they are a fraction of a second, somewhere, sometime. There's nothing else like them, they are special. Photo stories are so interesting to look through, they leave room for one to be imaginative and fill in the gaps yet still capture the essence of the moment. Gotta love 'em. 

And then 2016 happened.

No really, 2016 is here - I know, it's weird. 

Spraying strangers with water.

I have been in Belgium for almost a month now but I'm still posting images from shoots I did in Estonia. It's pretty awesome actually, I crammed in as many shoots as possible before I left, mainly because I wanted to take advantage of using the studio I had access to over there. I had pretty much used up everybody I knew for shoots already so naturally, I had to find complete strangers to do shoots with. I mean what could possibly make more sense? I somehow stumbled upon the Facebook profile of Breth. She seemed like she could do a really stellar job at this shoot, and she did. It's always a little bit sketchy to get complete strangers to come and model but most of the time it works out really well. The basic idea was to go the studio, spray her with water and take photos using a beauty-dish with a grid on it. The grid really helps to point the light giving a really dramatic, mysterious look to the image which I think worked really well here.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S. Eliot 

This images is the one where the effect of the grid is most strongly felt. As you can see it lit up Breth's face with a really nice smooth light and then shortly shifted to nothing. I think it turned out really well in this post. Initially I thought I'd just dump a bucket of water on Berth, it seemed like a pretty quick and effective way of getting her wet. We quickly realised however that this wasn't going to work because all the clothes and everything else would get way too wet also. So instead, I sprayed her with water trying to make sure that the water doesn't get to any unnecessary places. 

Hah, aren't I a rebel, no quote. I really needed some horizontal shots as well, this is one of them.

I really have to start shooting more horizontals as well. My portfolio is full of vertical images and while there's nothing wrong with that, it does get a little bit repetitive. I think I'll be trying to plan a few shoots where I can just shoot horizontal the whole way through, I think it could be a nice change.

"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it." - Salvador Dali

I love that quote, it embodies one of the things I love most about photography, the fact that you're always learning and never slowing down. Vince Lombardi said "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." - that one also resonates with me so much. Nothing is ever perfect, nothing - but if we strive for perfection nevertheless we can accomplish art which is in fact, excellent. I'm always chasing perfection, it is up to you to decide whether I also succeed at catching excellence.

How a Sunday evening beach plan turned into an oily photoshoot.

Not so long ago I met Triin, we did a photoshoot together and she turned out to be a really cool, super interesting person. Just before I left Estonia we thought that it would be cool go to go the beach just before midnight, just talk about stuff and chill a little. Obviously, this was me naively thinking that Estonian weather at the end of August would allow for such an outing, it didn't, It was way too cold and windy for the beach so we went to the studio instead and hung out there. We found some leftover cake and lemonade in the fridge and actually had a really good time. The problem with the studio though is that it's kind of inevitable to not have a shoot at some point, especially if your friend is wearing an amazing bodysuit like Triin was. It's not often that I get to do these really spontaneous photo-shoots. It's a real shame because they're really amazing, they tend to have this "lets just try this and maybe we get something cool" vibe. That is so necessary if you want to experiment with new ideas, it puts you into this scenario where it doesn't really matter if you fail at the photo miserably. You feel free to experiment with stuff you wouldn't normally experiment with on a shoot that's been prepared, at least not fully.

Triin getting ready to shoot!

Triin managed to find some shoes with some really high heels from the closet and off we went. I figured a black background would work best for this kind of stuff. The light was pretty simple, just one humongous soft box to light up Triin's entire body. As you can see below, the legs are a pretty big part of the image and at first we had some trouble highlighting them. Baby-oil is great for this stuff, it gives the skin those necessary highlights which draws out the body rather nicely. The thing I love about shooting with Triin is that she moves really nicely, she's not afraid of trying a little bit unorthodox poses and she has this wonderful ability to bring out her best features. 

The final shot.

Another fun fact about this shoot is that I only brought a tiny 50mm lens with me. I had no idea we'd actually do a shoot so I didn't really bring anything big and heavy with me. I'm bringing this up because so many people are holding themselves back from photography because they think they haven't got the necessary gear. Trust me, gear is one of the least important things when it comes to photography. Yes it helps, it can make things a lot easier and although  I took this with a 50mm, I was still in a professional studio with amazing light equipment so this isn't exactly fair but it is so much more important to be creative and figure out how to get the result you want with the gear you have available to you rather than bitching and whining about not having the necessary equipment. The equipment makes no difference if you're not being creative.

All kinds of fun with Grete.

Grete is a really amazing friend of mine, we work on some really cool projects together, I owe a large part of my photography success to her and she's one of those irreplaceable people without whom life wouldn't quite be as awesome as it is. I have had tons of shoots with Grete but on top of that some of the coolest projects I have worked on have been in collaboration with this amazing person. A couple of weeks ago, we had two shoots - one of them was a really simple, very chilled out shoot to get some beautiful pictures of Grete.

Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts. - Paramahansa Yoganada 

This definitely is not Grete trying to reapply makeup with a knife.

The second shoot however was something pretty special, we rented this Native American style headwear, hired a pro makeup artist to take care of makeup, went to a lovely rocky beach and waited for the sunset. Like literally waited for the sunset, for about five hours. I still haven't really thought of a good excuse on why we went there so early. We planned taking photos while the sun was setting and then a few shots after, at blue hour. I mean normally I plan these kinds of simple, really obvious things perfectly but I guess I must have been a little too excited to shoot with Grete. It was a challenging shoot, I wanted Grete to pose low, on the rocks to have them be a bigger part of the image than they would otherwise. This was a pretty difficult situation to pose in but luckily Grete managed to do a really fantastic job. The backlight of the sun also worked out really well even though it washed out some colours in the foreground, that was something which I had to resort to photoshop for. Personally I think that one of the most important ingredients of this shoot was the makeup. I rarely do photoshoots with overly fancy makeup but just a couple of days before, I was hanging out with Grete and we somehow came to the conclusion we should do something a little bit, out there. After an evening of messages and phone calls to various makeup artists to find one that could come help us on the next day we found one, she did a fantastic job of it too. The shoot came together, it worked out. It wasn't a shoot where I had so many good photos to choose from the picking "the one" is almost impossible but I got one, really solid, strong image. That to me is job well done.

"Don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold." - Bob Marley

Anima Nostra.

Oooooh let me give you a littles spoiler, this was a fun one. Long story short, I got to work with an incredibly talented, young fashion designer with big dreams and aspirations. It's amazing when you get to join up with someone like yourself and create images like these. Not only did we create some amazing images now but meeting these types of people is really amazing for me as an artist as it creates new alleys for collaborations in the future for big, bold, amazing projects. I'm going to share with you three of the images that we created and tell you a little bit about them, if you want to see all of them just stalk Mirjam Kalmann on facebook. I'm sure she'll be putting up the images soon!

"The true work of art is but a shadow of divine perfection." - Michelangelo

This was the first shot that we wanted to get. I thought I'd be all cool and take a big flash from the studio, use a lovely beauty-dish in front of it and create some amazing light. To this day I haven't quite figured out what went wrong with the flash as it worked perfectly fine back in the studio after but long story short, it didn't fire so we had to resort to good old speedlights. They work reasonably well but when it's as bright and sunny outside as it was on this day, you'd ideally want something more powerful. Oh well, you work with what you've got, no use whining about it. As a photographer friend of mine once told me, "I only have solutions, no problems." At the end of the day the shot turned out really well and I am more than happy with it. I'm at a little bit of a turning point right now actually, I noticed that the latest images in my portfolio somehow look more polished than the ones before. I think the main cause of this is the use of more fine tuning, more polishing in post production - it really does add the finishing touches which make an image great, not just good.

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance." - Aristotle

I can say without a shadow of doubt, this model is one of the most awesome models I have worked with. Seriously, she's the type of model that thinks faster than you do, the type of model that is doing the thing you were going to tell her to do in 5 seconds. Working with people like her just makes my job so easy, it's amazing. On top of that, you end up with stunning images like this. 

"Transformative leader serve a transcendent purpose, pointing the way to a new reality." - Dalai Lama

See I don't do a lot of full body shots like this, usually they're not the most tasteful of shots. This one however, I really like. There's something about it that just works. I think I'll leave it up to you to figure out what it is.

Tale of the photo-shoot: Guess what? It's Onerva.

I don't know what it is with Onerva, I shoot with her way too much. Soon this website will be as much about her modelling skills as it will be about my photography but I just can't help it. She's such a wonderful model and a really creative person. Combine those two things and magic, like literal magic happens.

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." - Vince Lombardi

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." - Vince Lombardi

Basically what happened was Onerva and I wanted to meet up in the summer to discuss some future creative projects, chill a little and as it turns out have a small photo-shoot. I took the ship to Helsinki and voila, re-united again. We went for a very high fashion kind of look, I'm really happy with the results. It's again something that I haven't really done a lot of before, I mean I've done a ton of fashion shoots but this one feels different to me, it has this vibe to it which I haven't really come across in any of my other photo-shoots. I love that, I mean even though I really love photography - doing the same style of shoots over and over again would get really boring. 

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." - Tony Robbins

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." - Tony Robbins

I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't think I'd get as many good shots from this shoot as I did. Creating a great image I think is about 3 aspects of a shoot, preparation, actual shooting and post production. Whenever you screw up one of those things you have to put in more work on the other two to balance it out. Preparation for this shoot was basically zero. Onerva took care of the outfits and locations and we just went. On the shoot I was still quite tired so even though I think I did a decent job, I've definitely been more active on shoots. That leaves post production. To put it simply, it made these photos come to life, it made these photos come from good, to great. Have a look at this before & after screenshot for example.

Before & After - the power of colour. 

Before & After - the power of colour. 

To be honest with you, the editing isn't that heavy. It's simply colour work, a little bit more in-depth colour work than normal but just colour work nevertheless. It goes to show though ow important colour is, it can really be the difference between an image which is bland and not too eye catching or an image which looks powerful and creates emotion in the viewer. I'll leave you now with one last shot of Onerva.

"The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live." - Leo F. Buscaglia

"The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live." - Leo F. Buscaglia

Tale of the photo-shoot: Triin

Awesome model, great photos - easily one of the most fun shoots I have done. It was a really good way of making shooting in the studio interesting. To me the regular white background is just really boring. On these photos you probably wouldn't even think we took them in the studio but well.. we were a bit cheeky and did just that. Triin was a really fantastic model, she moved incredibly well - I could have been speech impaired and we'd still have gotten amazing photos. Basically what we did was pretty simple, we used one of the couches in the studio, opened it up to make it seem like a bed. Brought in bed-sheets, some blankets, some pillows and then Triin got to roll around in all of that. Probably one of the comfiest a model has been on a shoot with me. 

"Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly." - John F. Kennedy

The thing I love most about photography is that there's always something new to try, the only limit to it is how well you can use your imagination. I think that most people would agree that this style of shoot is not exactly my forte but even though it was challenging, it was a really awesome shoot and the photo above is probably one of my favourite shots of all time. I think in many ways I'm starting to realise more and more a pattern between having really relaxed and fun shoots and great images. Maybe sometimes I focus too much on what I think I wanted to get from the photos rather than being spontaneous with the model. Being spontaneous tends to lead to a really relaxed atmosphere on the set, which then creates a ton of interaction and teamwork between the photographer and the model - that my friends, is always awesome.

"Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have." - Louis E. Boone

For these types of photos, a little bit heavier than usual post processing is necessary to make them really very flattering. Normally I just do colour work and that's pretty much it. Every once in a while however, I take images which I get really excited about, it's crazy how much time I can spend in photoshop then making them as perfect as they possibly can be. I mean.. that skin, you can't tell me it wasn't worth it! 

"Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain 

I think perhaps one of the things I love most about being a photographer is that I get to work with so many different fabulous people. Up until this shoot, I didn't know Triin, I had never seen her, never talked to her, anything. It's awesome to meet people like her who are really talented models and actually really great people. I'm am totally sure we'll be doing another shoot again soon.

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." - Andre Gide

Tale of the photo-shoot: Noora

Prep work? Naaaaaah, it's not like I tell you how important it is in every single blog post I write about a shoot. Not in this case though, we did very little of it. Noora was in Tallinn for a couple of days and I'm doing currently doing some work at a photography studio so we figured lets take advantage of that, go to the studio and see what happens. I think the only thing we decided beforehand was that Noora needed a hair straightener to straighten her hair. We managed to find one from a friend of mine so I'd say prep work went pretty well.

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid." -Albert Einstein

What came after was pretty simple, we went to the studio and took some pictures. End of story? Well pretty much but as I like writing I'll just tell you some minute details which could be interesting. I haven't shot in the studio a lot, in face the last time I did was two years ago and I was pretty inexperienced at it then so it was quite interesting to give that a try again. I've been working with flashes outside for a while now so a lot of that experience got carried over to the studio and it worked out pretty well. I find the studio to be a really tremendous place to experiment with different styles of light. It's harder to do that outside because of so many other factors like the sun, harsh shadows etc. In the studio it is a controlled environment where you can create light as you please. I think this makes shooting in the studio very unique, you're fully in control on how your photo is lit. That being said, it is harder, at least in my opinion, to tell a story in the studio. When shooting outside you have the help of your location, whether it be a fancy palace or a run down train-yard. This is why I focus a lot of time on location scouts, the setting for the photo-shoot is a key part of giving the image feeling so that it can create emotion in the person viewing it. In the studio I had a white background, it's not much of a setting. This means your models has to do a really good job at expressing an emotion through her pose, her eyes etc. Noora did a really fantastic job at that so I was very lucky. I think the shoot went really well and I'm actually quite excited to shoot in the studio some more. It's something different to what I normally do and I love experimenting with new things! I'll leave you now with one of my favourite photographs from the shoot and I think that the quote I put with it sums up Noora in a nutshell too.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. - Dalai Lama


Tale of the photo-shoot: Onerva

Finally after all this time I am writing another one of these tale of the photo-shoot posts. I've missed this. 

I had a fabulous shoot with Onerva recently, it's a little funny how two of my last shoots have both been with the same model - she's just so great though, it's hard not to want to work with someone who is as passionate about this type of stuff as I am. Onerva really has a way of getting involved and bringing so much creative input and value to the table. It makes for some really amazing shots that I couldn't achieve alone. This shoot came together in a pretty tight time frame. After Onerva had found this really awesome place she sent me a couple of photos and then we went to check it out together. After the location scout we had 72 hours to get ready for the shoot. We had to finalise the shot-list, figure out outfits, find an assistant. Thankfully everything went smoothly and Ragna was kind enough to come help us on this shoot.

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." - Scott Adams

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." - Scott Adams

I think this is easily one of the strongest portraits I have ever captured. I love how it came together, the expression on her face, the scarf, the bright red colours. I'm really happy with how this shot turned out.

"True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united." -  Wilhelm von Humboldt

"True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united." -  Wilhelm von Humboldt

I think this is another really unique shot and definitely something that I wouldn't be sharing with you if it weren't for the amazing collaboration spirit we had with Onerva on this shoot. I'll be heading off to Estonia now but I'm excited for the next shoot I have with her!


Future shoots, vlogging, travel and all that good stuff.

It's been a while hasn't it? I haven't written one if these blog posts since I did my last shoot more than a month ago. I've missed this, I've missed shooting, I've missed creating beautiful things with creative people. Luckily, that's all about to change. I have two weeks left in Belgium until I go to Estonia and those two weeks are going to be packed with one ingredient, awesome.

Some of you may have noticed that I started vlogging recently. I've always wanted to get more involved in making movies and I think this is a really great way for me to start. So far, I've been loving it. I think it's a really neat opportunity for you to see what I do from a different perspective, instead of just seeing the photo and maybe occasionally reading my rambling blog posts, you can also see how these shoots come together and what I do on random Sunday's. It's also becoming a really fun thing for me personally, it's really nice to be able to capture some of the moments in my life on video and to be able to look back on them. In the next two weeks I'm hoping to take you on for a ride to three of my photo shoots, some travelling and of course those random days where I'm up to some cool shenanigans.

Now that it's summer holidays I'm going to be doing photo shoots again at full force. I have three great shoots being planned out right now, one of which I am already shooting tomorrow. When I'm in Estonia I will be doing work experience at a photographer, Kertin Vasser. It's going to be really great opportunity to get some insight into how the photography industry actually functions. Being good at your craft is always just one side of the coin, you also have to be able to make a living off it and this is where I still have a lot to learn. Not only will I be doing work experience but I'm sure Grete and I will come up with epic projects again to bring to life. She's a really creative person and working with her is a blast, I'm very excited to be doing that again.

This weekend I'll be heading to Rotterdam for a little change of scenery with a friend of mine. I love discovering new places and Rotterdam seems to be a really awesome city. Doing that with great people just makes it even better. The week after that I'll be flying off to Estonia. The plan is to stay there for the whole summer but travel around the baltics and Scandinavia from time to time. I'm pretty sure I'll end up in Helsinki a few times for some events and a pretty special project I will definitely talk more about when it will actually start to come together more.

The next two months are going to be some of the most amazing times that I've ever had in my life and I am extremely excited to share all of that through my vlogs and these blog posts. I hope you'll join me on this journey! 

 

Dream shoot.

A little bit of backstory before I get into the exiting parts: in December I had this idea of printing out three huge prints and hanging them up on my wall, three photographs that really captured the essence of my photography. I came to the conclusion that I didn't quite have the last photo of those three, this shoot was meant to fill those empty shoes.

Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you guys, this shoot has been an absolute nightmare to organise. It's been in the planning since December of 2014. Unfortunately it had to be cancelled at least four times. The location changed, the model changed, the outfits changed, so many things changed but something that never changed was the belief that this project was going to be magical - and it was. 

The model ended up being Onerva and holy sh*t I have never seen anybody pour her heart and soul into a project like she did. It was an absolutely amazing thing to see - I keep telling you that one of the things I love most in life is seeing creative people come together and create something amazing. With this project, that happened on a scale that I have never witnessed before. She had so much passion for the whole project and that really helps out with the stress levels, especially when it comes to a project as special as this one. The outfit Onerva and I managed to put together was completely stunning, it looks really unique and I've never really seen anything quite like it before.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I really wanted to make this shoot the biggest, most exiting shoot I had done so far, I think we managed that. For the first time I got a videographer involved, Laurynas has been helping me out on shoots before but always as an assistant and never as a videographer. Video is something he is really passionate about so it only seemed logical to finally let him do what he does best. We've both currently been drowned in work and bureaucracy so the more in depth story of this shoot has been shelved for a week or two but when we finally get around to it I'll make sure to spam you all to oblivion! I managed to get two assistants involved also, now assistants are the people who just don't get enough credit. They take so much stress away from the shoot, this means I can concentrate on the image, communicating with the model and I don't have to worry about so much of the technical stuff. So thank you Ragna and Elvira for helping me out on this shoot, you guys did a really good job!

Another thing I am really proud of is the location for this shoot, Laurynas took a train to Leuven on a weekend and he past by this train station so we tracked it down and I went on a little location scout there, it was perfect. In my opinion the location is just as important as the model or the outfit for the success of these kinds of photo-shoots - it has the ability to turn good into great, to really add emotion and feeling to the image in ways that a human cannot even express. Initially I was going to do this shoot in a metro station, it would have worked out alright but finding a place like this was an absolute goldmine. This is probably why in some way I am glad the shoot had to get cancelled and postponed so many times, every time it did it allowed me to take a little more time to perfect a thing or two here and there - I believe the outcome is much more mature because of it. Setbacks are always annoying, but there is a little bit of good in everything.

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” - Anatole France

This photo-shoot has had so many ups and so many downs but we finished on one of the biggest ups I have ever experienced. I am so happy with how everything turned out, Onerva did a wonderful job and the rest of the crew pulled together beautifully to make this project come to life in such a beautiful way. I couldn't be happier and I'm really exited to take on the next big challenge. Until then, I'll leave you with this final quote from Walt Disney:

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
— Walt Disney


Epic adventure to France.

Warning! This blog post has absolutely nothing to do with photography so if that's not what you're into to you might want to spend this next 5 minutes doing something else - if you are though then sit back and enjoy! 

This past weekend I cycled to France with a friend of mine, Laurynas. The trip to there ended up being 123km and I was pleasantly surprised that I actually managed to get there in a fairly alive state. I hadn't done much training rides in the past two weeks so I was somewhat worried I would be exhausted by the time we arrive but thankfully my legs held up. The city we cycled to, Roubaix, ended up being a bit of a ghost town actually. All the cafes and restaurants were closed and apart from this one parade and the supermarket we barely saw any people. I was somewhat surprised to learn of this as the city is quite notorious for a cycling race "Paris-Roubaix". I guess that one day of the year might be when it shines but unfortunately we didn't get to see the town in it's full glory. Despite that, the dinner at the hotels was mighty grand (my food photography skills might need some refining though).

My delicious dinner.

My delicious dinner.

After a good nights worth of sleep it was time to head back to Brussels, in the morning, at first I didn't not even want to think about getting back onto my bike but after breakfast and a little bit of recovery time what choice did I have. Once we left and the first time I sat back down onto the saddle I was releaved because it didn't actually feel too bad, or at least not yet. Soon after we turned into this path right beside the river and lo and behold, the wind kicked right back up into our faces. The next 30km was quite exhausting but thankfully we took a different route back which lead us through some rather interesting and beautiful areas of Belgium. This meant that beside the wind, the experience was, although tiring, quite enjoyable. It was quite surreal to see so many varieties of Belgium in such a short period of time. When driving through the country with the car, you're either on the motorway where you don't see anything anyway or everything just happens way too quickly for you to take in the atmosphere. Cycling however is different, it's slow enough to let you enjoy the little things you encounter on the road and yet fast enough to allow you to travel pretty lengthy distances in one day. It's one of those sports that allows you to be truly free and that can sometimes be so important when living such an otherwise busy life. After another 125km and a ride through the Hell of Brussels we finally reached home again - it was a fun one.

Feelin good!  

Feelin good! 

 

Tale of the photo-shoot: Angeline

Another absolutely beautiful shoot, this one was a really fun one and I think the photos turned out really unique. Angeline and I are quite good friends so the photo-shoot was really fun and easy, she also turned out to be a really great model - I was genuinely surprised of how good of a job she did! More and more I've started using flash as of lately and here I didn't do that, in fact I was completely solo, no assistants or anything, just the model and I. Sometimes it's really refreshing to go back to the basics and just shoot using natural light, it actually works out really well most of the time and it's a good reminder of where I started a few years ago. I really liked this shoot, it has this sort of really unique vibe to it which I haven't achieved in a really long time and I'm absolutely in love with it. However looking at the outfit Angeline put together, I'm not at all surprised that I feel this way.

It's quite a lovely feeling to have done such an easy going shoot again, it was a lot of fun for the both of us and although I do enjoy all of my shoots I always want to make them better and this also requires a bit of hard work and concentration to the task at hand. I'd love to tell you about all sorts of mishaps and challenges we faced but I have to be honest, this was one of those shoots that just went so smoothly it's a little bit silly even to me and obviously, I mean that in a good way. 

Sadly I can't upload any photos to my website currently as I'm stuck somewhere in France with very bad internet. If you want to see them they're all on my Facebook page! ;)

Update: I'm back at HQ now so here are some photos!


Tale of the photo-shoot: Clelia the Pirate

It is good to be back my friends! I have not had a shoot in more than a month (what is surprising and absolutely flattering to me is that some of you actually noticed this too) and believe me when I say it, I have missed this, truly. The first shoot since a long while was with the one and only Clelia (a.k.a the pirate) and I must admit, it was a rather special one - I want to take this quick moment to tell you a little bit about the challenges we faced and what we ended up with in the end.

The very basic principle idea was to have a shoot which screams elegance, but nothing too dull, the glamour still has to stay in there - what better way to do this than incorporate a piano into the photo-shoot. Now unfortunately I'm not lucky enough to have a piano lying around in my house so what we decided to do is use the Salle Polyvalente in our school. Trust me, when you tell the director of a school you want to do a photo-shoot in the Salle Polyvalente he'll be really bloody confused on why he should actually let you do this. Somehow, I managed to convince him, perhaps some of his requests were sort of "swept under the carpet" but hey - it's for the greater good, or so I keep telling myself anyway. 

Pointless bureaucracy aside, the shoot ended up working out really well, I'll be honest with you, it was indeed one of those shoots where the photos looked different to what I hoped they would do. In fact, I was a little bit disappointed when I looked through them but then I edited a few and just let them sit there, I came back to them every few hours or so and the photos really started to grow on me. There was something quite pure about them, despite the imperfections I had noticed earlier the feel I wanted for the photo was there. This "feel", is more often than not the most important thing to a photo - it either makes it or breaks it. If a photo somehow speaks to the viewer and creates some meaning I'd consider it a successful photograph. Now don't be mistaken, those imperfections I had trouble with in the beginning still aren't excusable, (although most of them I managed to fix with the magic of photoshop) however this time, they were small things - things that didn't affect what the photograph actually stood for.

And on that note, here are the two photos I fancied the most, what do you think? 

Another fine month has passed.

There goes March, it's been a busy one, no seriously it has - I know I haven't been shooting much but everything else has been hectic. Lip-dub at school, some pre-production for a short film, exiting things are ahead. March was sort of like the "Calm before the storm" - except the calm bit wasn't actually very calm.mean. Lots of pre-production for many, many different projects. I've got to know some absolutely amazing, creative, hard-working people who pour all their heart and soul into the task at hand, I love that. First of all it's just a beautiful thing, people working in harmony to create something and second of all it's such a relief when you're working with people you know you can depend on. Having confidence in your team is so important, it relieves you of so much stress and worrying. In many ways, this is why these long term projects like the lip-dub we're organising at school are actually a little bit easier in the long run. The people who end up actually having an impact are few out of many, but those few work as hard as they possibly can to make the results as good as they can be. 

I'm really exited to get myself involved in another film project again, Laurynas and I are entering this short film competition - it can be maximum 3 minutes and for the past few days I've been refining the script for it. I'm super exited, I'm sure we're going to have lots of roadblocks and challenges ahead as Laurynas and I are kind of bound to want to do thing we have absolutely no idea how to make happen. The learning curve on projects like these is huge, the amount of times we fail at something is even bigger but the most important thing is to never give up and always try again. I'll be sure to write more about this project as it develops into something more concrete - I'm just really quite exited about it for now!

I'm also throwing myself back into photoshoots now, I have a few ready to be published already and there's a few that just need to be scheduled and shot. This "Dream Shoot" that I may or may not have been talking about for the last 4 months should also finally be happening. It's been a bit of a cursed shoot, there's a ton of people who need to be involved for it to be perfect and I want it to be perfect, we've had to postpone it so many times but I think I've finally got it figured out now and I absolutely cannot way to get to shooting it already.

Now my friends however, another training ride is waiting for me so I'll talk to you soon!

Crashing, losing sight of things and getting back up

So now almost two weeks ago I had a car crash into me while cycling, it wasn't anything too bad but it messed up my plans for March. I had to wear a cast for 10 days so I couldn't move around that much and lifting my left arm was somewhat painful for a while which made picking up a camera pretty difficult.

Thankfully I'm all good now and I'm trying to figure everything out but I feel terribly guilty for not shooting for so long. I know I don't really have an obligation to shoot a certain amount every month but I still get the feeling I am letting myself down, the feeling that maybe I'm letting some of you down. On the bright side, I do have some five shoots that I have coming in the next few weeks - that being said I still feel like I should be doing more. Sure I had a crash and that may have affected my plans a little but why isn't there an event called "Dream Shoot" in my calendar this weekend... That's just because I've been slacking with organisation, it takes a ton of work to get all these people involved. Every shoot I do should be better than the previous one and this means getting more and more people involved, assistants, makeup artists, behind the scenes videographers etc. This shouldn't be used as an excuse however, to do great work a certain amount of hustle is required and I like to think that I work pretty hard but since I had that accident I've been slacking, now it's time to get my shit together.

Much of today I spent figuring out dates for the different shoots and it feels good to be getting that organisation done again, I still need to find a few assistants and wait for replies but things are starting to take shape. I'm super happy about that, just sitting around doing nothing for no obvious reason drags me down so much. I realise it's kind of an ironic thing to say since I really do have no plans for the weekend (but hey I have a free house so maybe I'll clear my mind - or does anyone wanna come over? :D) but it's true, More often than not I glance at my calendar and everything for the next three weeks is planned, it's a lot of work and moving around but I love it, I love it because I get to do photography, I get to work with the most amazing people and visit some stunning places and create some truly meaningful memories. and I can't wait to get back to that.

I also can't wait to get back on my bike again, it got pretty beaten up in the crash and currently it's still being fixed but cycling is something that gives me so much freedom - freedom to explore the world, freedom to travel and most importantly the freedom to get away from all the stress of school, meetings, all the stupid dumb shit that comes with being involved in various projects, I'm sure you all know the feeling. Cycling allows me to leave all that behind and clear my mind for a few hours, it allows me to think about the things that actually matter, the things that may actually have some sort of an impact and won't just be forgotten in a matter of seconds and just enjoy the little things in life. And hey, I have to do some sports right? I guess it takes care of that too, I'm going to be cycling to France soon with a friend for the weekend, it's a 240km trip in total and I can't wait, seriously, if I could I'd go now. I'll be sure to let you all know if I survive that trip, it's gonna be pretty epic!