Foto | Indsigt | Synspunkt

Et spøgelse fra fortiden er lige kommet ind i mit liv og forhindret en interessant karrieremæssig mulighed, der kunne have haft stor betydning for min fremtid - både professionel og som menneske. Det er bemærkelsesværdig hvordan tidligere "fejltagelser" kan hjemsøge dig resten af livet. Er det rimeligt, at et menneske, som jeg interagerede med for mange år siden, og med hvem jeg ikke altid var enig med vedrørende strategiske og operationelle spørgsmål, stadig kan gøre sin indflydelse gældende som reference - selv 10 år efter. Som mennesker ændrer vi os med tiden - og lærer af vores fejl. Som åkander flyder vi med strømmen, og tidligere beslutninger og fejl påvirker vores fremtid. Det er en kendsgerning jeg nu har følt direkte.

Can you guess who the nice young man is in the image? It is me as a high school student - important years - where my passion for photography really took off. My god - 35 years has passed since those happy years. I have just scanned b/w negatives and color slides from these years, and it has been hilarious to see the pictures again. Since many of the images are not something to boast about, the mission was only to get the old negatives and slides converted to digital format. Since I have many pictures from my analog years this conversion process must also go quickly. Therefore I have just tested JOBO Snapscan 9000. It took med just 5 minutes to unpack it and set up. The scanning process is extremely simple. You install an SD card in the scanner, and then feed negatives or slides into the scanner by the help of various rails and frames - one at a time. The scan process only takes 4 seconds per negative / slide. The scanner has some simple correction options such as built-in color ...

I'm 53 years old. Yet another year is coming to an end. Some weeks ago our little family was hit by a life changing event as my wife got ill. Everything stopped - I was in chock - we are not immortal and will live forever - as young people or people with a young mind are inclined to believe. I'm sure my wife will overcome this illness, but our family has stopped up for a brief moment to reflect upon our life and way of living. One of my many reflections can be comprised into one sentence - "Don't waste time". It sound banal but priorities must change when you realize that life has an expiration date. Maximize time with the ones you love and have fun while working.

Yet again I was hired to do some people portraits for the company detailkarriere.dk in Denmark. It's a basic lighting setup, with two SB-910 through a white umbrella on the left and a white reflector on the right. Exposure settings for both photos are: 1/60 sec, at f/8.0, ISO 100, 0EV, A Equipment: Nikon D800, AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G, Nikon SB-910,  PocketWizard Flex TT5, PocketWizard Mini TT1  and PocketWizard AC3. Highlights are well controlled with the help of the PocketWizards. In post I have added a bit more light to the male model, as I thought this suited him well.  The client and I have agreed that tonality doesn't have to be 100% identical for the six portrait photos I've made for this company. It is more important that the shooting angle, b/w settings and framing to enhance the models personality.

A series of b/w photos of old tools from the Nizza Antique Market in Nizza Monferrato.

Hmmmm - it's summertime and I'm on vacation in Italy. Plenty of time to experiment with Photoshop. I read an article on LENSCRATCH about the Japanese photographer Michiko Makino and her stunning composite or double exposure photos. This photo is an experiment of mine trying to create something special with a base photo (see previous blog article) and nine identical photos of a another flower subject blended in two different ways. If we don't experiment - we don't learn and evolve as a photographer and artist.

I've been photographing for over 30 years - and for the past 8 years it has been primarily digital. And with the constant improvement in the AF-system of DSLRs that fit nearly every situation and equipment combination I have not given manual focus a lot of thoughts. Yesterday during the golden hours - while walking in the beautiful surroundings of my home in Italy looking for suitable subjects for nature close-ups (not macro) - I found it difficult to rely on the AF-system of my Nikon D800 for various reasons (light, physical positioning, wind etc.)  I set the AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 lens to manual focus. And from that point on I just kept shooting focusing on getting the right exposure and the best framing rather than making the AF-system lock-in so I could take a photo.  I'm now ready to try manual focus while doing portrait photography.

I took those photos in July 2013 while visiting a restaurant nearby our Italian home - Casa Galeazzo. The new Analog Efex Pro 2 has a range of old camera profiles - and among those you find the very interesting "Wet Plate" effect. You have a multitude of control methods to alter the appearance of the wet plate effect, so it is possible to develop your own wet plate style. PetaPixel made a good review of this new addition to the Google Nik Collection.

Nikon Coolpix A is my traveller companion. I don't bring my D800 anymore. Beside the tack sharp files straight out of the camera I'm impressed with its ability to hit the correct white balance each time and the color reproduction. The colors are just spot on - not too saturated our pale. Especially skin colors are realistic. The photo my beautiful wife Vivi is a good example of a "snap shot" I took at a train station. Exposure = 1/125 sec f/4.5, 0 EV, ISO 100. Bang - no sharpening or other correction (except Lens Correction) in Lightroom. If you are shooting D700, D600, D610, D800, D3 or D4. Buy a Nikon Coolpix A as your traveling companion. It is worth every dollar.

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.

Nogle gange er man bare heldig som fotograf. Jeg tog dette naturlige portræt af Mia Blichfeldt - en meget begavet ung badminton-spiller til en privat fest - bare en måned før hun blev den yngste danske mester i Badminton i senior league - og hun er kun 16! Selvfølgelig kan du finde mange billeder af Mia "i aktion", men kun få, hvor hun bare er selv - uden for badmintonarenaen.

It's no secret - I'm a big fan of the Nik Collection  from Google. And recently a new addition to this collection has been made - Analog Efex Pro .  The GUI of all programs in the Nik Collection is simple and very intuitive to use - but once you start playing around with the controls and see just how subtle the small tweaks can be, you realize the true power of this collection.  The GUI of the Analog Efex Pro is no exception. It's fun to select an analog camera preset from the list (Classic Camera, Wet Plate, Toy Camera, Vintage Camera) or select the "Camera Kit" and design your own preset. Create professionally stylized images by picking a preset, then diving in to fine-tune your approach. Adjust bokeh, textures, frames and other elements, then pinpoint the location of your effects with precise on-image controls. And additional cameras, films, bells, and whistles will be added. Below is another example:

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?