Foto | Indsigt | Synspunkt

On the growing list of portrait photographer that I admire - the young an very talented Miller Mobley has just been added. The enclosed portrait og late Philip Seymour Hoffman is a good example of a composition and perfect light technique that emphasizes a unique personality and personal situation.

I really don't like to superpose a copyright logo or any other text across my photos. And I generally don't like all the different types of frames various software tools let you add to a photo. But I recognize the need to visually protect your work besides adding copyright information into the EXIF data, and at the same time promote your name and portfolio. So I've designed a compromise - adding a standard black frame and my name in RED and url in WHITE separated by a GREY square. I have not added a (C) in front of my name. Adding my name and URL implies that this photo is protected by a copyright (still part of the EXIF-data). What do you think? Does it ruin the photo?

Retouching a portrait always involve some dodging and burning during post processing. If you want to enhance facial form by the use of light and shadow, the "Dodge & Burn" on a 50% grey layer is very effective. The german photographer and Photoshop master - Calvin Hollywood - has made a tutorial where he demonstrates a fast method to achieve an automatic dodge & burn effect.

Twitter is a fabulous social media giving me access to a wast amount of interesting people and topics related to photography. Lately though I've been unsubscribing a lot to focus on a selected few twitters who doesn't spam their twitter feed and who distributes interesting insight and knowledge through links or own work. @thomashawk posted a twit with the following head line "Husband takes bird's-eye view photos of his naked wife" and a link to a New Zealand based photographer by the name John Crawford . Of course this headline caught my attention :-) - but it also lead me to a great photographer, who has been around for many years.  The set Arial Photos  was made in the good old analogue days, and the sheer effort it must have taken to orchestrate one photo is impressive by all standards.  John Crawford states that his aim is to capture images that have a high degree of interest and contrast,don’t look too technical, and are easy to look at an...

Viggo Rivad is one of the most significant Danish photographers and this summer he turned 90. My daughter and I visited the "Nivaagårds Malerisamling" museum, where a special exhibition of Viggo Rivad's photographs are on display until Januar 2013. Black and white film has always been Viggo Rivad's preferred platform and one of his many life long themes was documenting the life on the bottom of the society. But among the exhibited themes you will also find photographs from his many trips and portraits of artists like Viggo - true masters of their craft.

Every year we hear about press photographers being killed while trying to capture a decisive photo and document the truth. They also have to face a bunch of moral issues while being close to death and people in need of help. In my opinion it is vital to capture a photo that can influence decisions on a large scale. But when faced with the choice of either keep taking pictures or trying to change the course of a situation by personal interaction (and maybe risk your own life), I can only imaging the moral issues a press photographer must deal with in a few decisive seconds.

As amateur photographers we start shoot everything and hence nothing. I have been doing this for so many years that I'm embarrassed to count them. But in 2012 I decided upon a photographic project involving grafitti on metal surfaces. I will made 3 triptych - in total nine square photos - and each photo has to fit visually nice to its neighbor. The first triptych is ready and is measuring 80 x 30 cm. Now I'm hunting for the next three square grafitti on metal scenes. I think I found one in Milan last week. What do you think? Now I have to find other scenes that visually matches this one. The hunt has begone....

How do you challenge your creativity? Being a photographer - full time or part time - is very competitive. We all have the same equipment, which we can buy with no margin to the dealers due to the commodity nature of photographic equipment, and we all face clients that more or less have the same requirements and want a low price for maximum quality. If you are an average photographer trying to survive in the main stream photographic business, then you will not make enough money to make a living. How do you find your own voice, promote it and get the jobs? I can't give you an answer but the small lesson I have learned it to constantly challenge your own photographic abilities. It's not about how you master your equipment, but how you SEE an envision a photo opportunity . Applying the tools afterwards is just the basics. I'm in no way a special gifted photographer. On the contrary -  I've been annoyed with my own mediocrity for long. Yes - I can make technic...

What is creativity? The above photo is not about creativity, but about good skills within photography and the ability to creata a "Ahhh", "Nice", Beautiful" comment from followers on social photo sites like Flickr. But all though I like this photo and I had fun while post processing it (and shooting it) its not displaying my creativity. While I'm becoming better at mastering photography from an equipment point of view I'm still completely blind when it comes to communicating a story through my photography. Its only beautiful photos. After reading about the young photographer Natalie Dybisz aka Miss Aniela on Lenscratch , I even more convinced that I need to define a new mission for becoming a true photographer with my own voice. Focus is needed. A couple of themes that is close to my heart and mind is needed. Creating a body of work, that can be presented as a visual statement to galleries and magazine editors, is the strategy I'm going to...

Yesterday I received the first D800 and delivered it to a customer, and today I met Joe McNally - a living legend within photography and one of my inspirations. Unfortunately I didn't bring my D300 to this event arranged by NPS  - Nikon Professional Services - but I had to have a photo of Joe - even a low resolution iPhone one. Third from left you can see the also famous Bill Frakes - a sports photographer shooting for Sports Illustrated. Joe McNally is famous for his extensive experience shooting with Nikon Speedlights, his deep understanding about light and of course his over 20 years as a National Geographic photographer. Both Joe McNally and Bill Flakes delivered a fantastic presentation with amazing photos from their career and the stories behind. I've been shooting for 30 years and know my way around a camera and basic light usage, but I'm still an infantile compared to those two giants. I have much to learn and that just makes me so happy! Today at the age ...

My daughter Camilla would like to work professional with photo and video. She is finishing highschool this year and need to prepare a portfolio of her photographic work to present as part of the application for the multimedia school she wants to attend. They will only accept 20 students each year and the number of applicants are several hundred. The work to build her portfolio started today and Camilla had persuaded her good friend Simone to act as a model. We set up our home studio and worked both with a white and black back drop and various light set-up with a set of Elinchrom D-Lite flash units and a range of diffusers. For once I acted as the assistent and Camilla made her own choices of lenses, light and set-up decisions. It was difficult for me to shut up, but I tried my best :-) This photo I took while Camilla and Simone was looking through all the photos Camilla had made on her Nikon D3100. I'm looking forward to see which photos she is going to select...