Foto | Indsigt | Synspunkt

I love shooting portraits - both the kind where I have creative freedom and those where I have to stick to a certain look and feel. The two photos I will show here today belong to the latter category. Both photos are for online usage - company website, Linkedin profile etc. They needed to radiate seriousness and professionalism. The lighting set-up need to be simple and fast to mount. I was only given 1 hour to set-up, take the photos and dismantle, before they needed the meeting room. My lighting source was a single Elinchrom D-Lite 4 (400W) studio flash with an Elinchrom Portalite Square Soft Box (40 cm) controlled with the EL-Skyport Transmitter mounted in the hot shoe on my D800. Even though I only needed an upper body a head shot I chose to bounce the light into a nearby white wall to soften the light even more. The model was place so, that some natural window light lit them on their right side (left on the photo) and my single light source lit them on the left side. ...

Product photography is a new endeavor that I have chosen to explore. A Danish manufacturer of kitchen and food equipment asked me to photograph their full product line for a new e-store soon to be launched. The task also included some stop-motion video's. The lighting set-up was two Nikon SB-910 Speedlights mounted on Manfrotto Nano 5001B light stands. The light modifiers was a standard white umbrella and a Lastolite soft box.  A couple of PocketWizards FlexTT5 was attached to the Speedlights and a PocketWizard MiniTT1 and AC3 was attacked to a Nikon D800.  The items was placed on a white dining table with a non reflective surface. From here on the task was to avoid deep and dark shadows, but still keep a hint of a shadow to preserve a dimensional aspect. The item surface was rubber and metal. You can't imagine how hard it is to keep such surfaces free of dust particles. This becomes very clear when you look at the photos in Lightroom while doing the...

I'm not a full time professional photographer but take on 2-3 paid jobs per month. It keeps me sharp and I find it rewarding to work with other professionals on a specific task. My latest assignment was to shoot a video for a 20 second commercial, that will run on regional TV in January 2014 (my 2nd TV-commercial). Some stills where also required for printed adds. I won't be doing the final retouching of the raw files, but the photo above is my post processing. The two aspiring models ( Philip Stangebye to the left &  Alexander Behrang Keshtkar to the right)  where really nice to work with. They required nearly no instructions and fell quite naturally into the role as "silly fishermen". Thanks guys! On the technical side I faced a small set-back when setting up the Speedlights.  The PocketWizard Mini TT1 had run out of battery power. So without my trusted PocketWizards for light control, I had to revert back to standard Nikon Commander mode and IR-contro...

1/4 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100, -1/3 EV First are foremost you are alone. For me photographing is a reflective process where I focus on the image and think abstract thoughts - letting my mind flow. While in this state there is nothing more disturbing that other human beings. So when the sky is all grey and its raining softly, then its time to grab your photo gear and head for the forrest, beach or open landscape to escape the every day life. An all grey sky (the lords big soft box) and a bit of rain is perfect conditions for shooting black and white photos. With me today I had the following equipment: Nikon D800 Nikon Coolpix A AF-S Nikkor 28mm f/1.8G Nikon MC-36 remote cord release Velbon GEO N830 tripod and QHD-72Q Ballhead Crumpler backpack Holebrook WP sweater Stetson Herringbone Hatteras The AF-S 28mm f/1.8G lens is a nice and not so heavy lens that fits perfectly on a D800. It is sharp and delivers a soft bokeh wide open. A bit of vignetting, radial distortion and ...

Photographing Halloween can be a scary process - not so much because of what you encounter of creatures and ghosts, but because you as a photographer have to shoot with flash in near complete darkness trying to capture fast moving objects. But with a Nikon D800, AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G and a SB-910 I threw myself into the big crowd of halloween participants- app. 4.500 persons, that took part in the 2nd largest Halloween event in Denmark (the master event being held at Tivoli ). Måløv is - with only app. 9.000 inhabitants - not a big town. But a few pertinacious souls have build this Halloween event over many years into an event that encompasses the whole town. Here are a couple of shots from the event.... by the way - the red devil is the town priest :-) You can see all the photos here .

Fog over the Valley.jpg , originally uploaded by Kirstein . The weather in Piemonte (Italy) with the typical fog banks in the early morning hours. The famous red wine grape - Nebbiolo - that is use in great wines from Barolo and Barbaresco - translate into "fog at the foot of the mountain".

In Denmark we have for many years used a secure domestic credit card - Dankortet - and all Danes use it more or less for all their purchased based money transactions. In my e-store - nikonphotoexpert.com - we sell Nikon equipment and other photography related articles. You can pay with Dankortet or a Paypal account. October 1st I received an order for a AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/4 lens and the payment was done with a Dankort. The delivery address was in Denmark, I could see a phone number, an e-mail address and the IP-number. Their was nothing suspicious with that order - except the customer name - but then again I have many customer with a none Danish name, and they have never given me any worries. The money was transferred to my account and I shipped the lens. Today I received a mail from nets - the largest provider of payment services in the Nordic - informing me, that the owner of the Dankort has made objection to the purchase and denied to have place the order. So they had to t...

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?

End August I was asked to photograph a young couple with their newborn girl Lola on the day og her baptism. There was no time for a complicated shoot so I chose a simple set-up with two SB-910 and a white shoot through umbrella on the left and a large silver reflector on the right, to open op the shadows. The flash was remotely controlled with PocketWizards. I shot with a Nikon D800 and AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 and AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/4. The first batch was just short of 200 photos. I reduced this number to 105 photos through a 1st phase editing in Lightroom and uploaded the photos to a folder in Dropbox for them to review. They chose 21 photos and the final 2nd phase editing involving LR, Color Efex Pro 4 and Silver Efex 2, as I made a color and b/w version of each photo. Personally I like the b/w versions best. As you can see - Lola is not all that happy with the situation :-) Here is my favorite from the day...

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.

You don't have to travel far to find amazing photographic opportunities. Close to where I live (Lyngby near Copenhagen) we have small streams with slow clean water. Time is in a capsule here. I just love to find beauty in the nature that surrounds me. As we don't have mountains and valleys I have to zoom in on the grandness of the ordinary.

UPDATE: Here are the four portraits that the client chose for the home page (www.detailkarriere.dk) and their Facebook company page. The photos will soon show on those locations: Original post: At this job I had to shoot four people while they took a break from work. The set-up is similar to the one described in the previous blog post. The main light is two SB-910 shot through a white umbrella and a silver reflector acted as fill light. We shot against a white wall. I used a Nikon D800 with AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G. Post processing done in Lightroom 5 and Silver Efex Pro2. The total picture count was around 40. The shoot took 1 hour and post processing 2-3 hours. I delivered app. 25 photos for the first review. Four examples are shown here. Only a b/w version was ordered. This is not the final version. As soon as the client has selected the photos they want to use, I will align the tonality profile and format. I still have to improve my Lightroom workflo...

I'm finally returning to my blog after a while - nearly 6 month. There are several reasons for this, but let's not focus on trivia around securing an income - let's focus on the exiting process of creating portraits. Today I had the pleasure of photographing my good friend Finn Wichmann Lund , as he needed a straight forward business portrait for Linkedin and other "official" web pages / documents. I call this "Quick Portrait" as the set-up is really fast. I use two Nikon SB-910 attached to a Lastolite Professional A2412 Triflash bracket mounted on a Manfrotto 5001B Tripod. As a diffusor I use a standard shoot through white umbrella. On each Nikon SB-910 speedlight I attach a PocketWizard Flex TT5. On my Nikon D800 with AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 I mount a PocketWizard MiniTT1 and an AC3. To reflect some light back I use a Silver California Sunbouncer. The camera is in Aperture priority mode, ISO 100, f/7.1. I´m shooting against a white wall. The RAW fil...

The first image in a series of black & white photos where mother nature plays the main role. Capture details: Nikon D800 with AF-S 14-24 f/2.8G Exposure of 1/125 sec at f/4.0, 0EV, ISO 100 Post processed in Lightroom, CS6 and Silver Efex Pro 2

Coolpix A, 1/800 sec at f/7.1, 0EV, ISO 100, A Coolpix A, 1/640 sec at f/7.1, 0EV, ISO 100, A Coolpix A, 1/400 sec at f/9.0, 0EV, ISO 100, A Coolpix A, 1/640 sec at f/9.0, 0EV, ISO 100, A Enclosed four photos taken with the new Nikon Coolpix A - DX format camera. I'm very impressed with the level of details and the dynamic range that this camera can capture. Above photos has been through a post process in LR4, but that is also what we expect to be able to do with large RAW-files from the DX-sensor with no low pass filter.

D800 with AF-S 24-70mm, 1/80 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100, 0EV, 56mm Even on a cloudy day it's possible to find strong black & white photographic subjects - especially because the sky serves a a great softbox. When you go for a walk and bring you camera, try to look down! An amazing array of interesting subjects and pattern emerges right in front of you. Here I found an array of stone fragments and leafs that created a interesting pattern - very suitable for a black & white representation. I hope you agree. The photo was prepared in Lightroom and then converted to B&W in Silver Efex Pro 2.0.

D800 with AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8: 1/80 sec af f/4.5, 0 EV, ISO 200, 28mm OMG - I have not posted on my blog for over a month. Starting up in a new position as CEO for Danimex Communication is occupying the main part of my waking hours. I'm spending my time between three homes - my work home in Sønderborg , my week-end home in Lyngby and my holiday home near Acqui Terme in Piedmont, Italy.  In between I'm traveling to interested places - Sorrento , Italy - Dubai , UAE - Johannesburg , South Africa - in March alone. It's a good time to get engulfed in my hobby - photography. D800 with AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8: 1/125 sec af f/7.1, 0 EV, ISO 400, 66mm The photos here are not a visual metaphor representing my three homes :-) Not far from my home in Italy the old porous layers of compressed clay, limestone, chalk and other elements are visible just along side the old dirt road. Black and white is the best way to capture this display of natures fragility. D800 with AF-...

The Nikon D800 is an amazing camera. Coupled with the equal as amazing AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G and  a travel tripod Velbon UT-43Q I took this early evening shot from a balcony from our ski apartment in the beautiful ski resort city Bad Gastein . Equipment: Nikon D800 with AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G Exposure: 30 sec at f/13, 0 EV, ISO 100, 24mm - (file size: 39MB)

It has been a while since my last post. The reason is that I have started as CEO at Danimex Communication A/S in the wonderful city Sønderborg (where I was born). Last week a small delegation from our company visited the Italian city Sorrento to participate in a "Executive Partner Conference" by Motorola. Visiting Sorrento was a first for me and unfortunately there was not time during our 3 day stay to conduct a photo walk. More or less the only photo I managed was this shot from my hotel balcony, where I had a direct view across the Bay of Naples to the Mount Vesuvius . Equipment: Nikon D3200 with AF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED Exposure: 1/400 sec at f/7.1, 0 EV, ISO 100, 80mm - (file size: 15MB)

My wife and daughter read their fair share of magazines and hence are exposed to many commercial featuring beautiful women and men promoting stuff that we need to buy to become happy. As my daughter is setting her sight on becoming a professional photographer we often discuss the commercials from a photographic perspective. The models are an illusion created to please our brain an create a stop effect. In real life they are still beautiful people, but in the adds they have undergone a transformation towards the unattainable ideal of a human being. You won't believe what can be done on the photo retouching process. Sometimes it is gentle and subtle changes underlining the already existing beauty. But sometimes it is deep and transformative changes, that creates another person. I'm not a fan of the latter, but can accept minor retouching to enhance what is already there. Let me give an example. In January I had the pleasure of working together with an new model with a very ...