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Today it was announced that two of the largest photography retailers in the UK - Calumet and Wex Photography - has decided to merge. This event was initiated by the acquisition of Wex Photography by the owner of Calumet - Aurelius. The photography industry has always been slow to adapt to changes in consumer behavior and market conditions. In Denmark this is quiet obvious through the poor performance of many small and independant photography retailers. Tools like PriceRunner is forcing prices down to zero-margin level faster than you can say "please buy from me I have the new product in stock" after a new product has been launched. Consumers are not necessary loyal to a specific retailer and will shop around if they can save 10€ on a camera, a lens or any other photography equipment. It doesn't have to been an expensive purchase for the discount hunters to go for the cheapest retailer. As a solution photography retailers has established their own purchasing company...

I use LinkedIN - the business world's social media - every day. And 8 out of 10 times a profile is accompanied by a very bad "selfie" taken with a bad mobile phone camera. Funny selfies or snapshots belong to Facebook. If you are serious about your professional life and LinkedIN profile then you not only curate the text but also go for a professional profile portrait - as you would look to a job interview or at a meeting with a big client. Inger Marie Jensen - who I know from my tenue at Copenhagen Business School where we both has been involved in the Executive MBA-program, asked my to "do a proper business portrait". The lighting set-up is simple: Using an Elinchrome D-Lite-it 2/4 To Go Kit I mounted a beauty dish as main/key light and a rectangular soft box to lighten the back drop from left to right adding a light fall off to her left side and creating a soft gradient. Equipment wise I used a Nikon D810/MB-D12 and a Sigma AF 70-200mm f/2.8. The back...

Et dejligt familieportræt, som blev givet i en julegave til bedsteforældrene. Det er taget i mit studie i Lyngby. Giv mit et kald hvis du også ønsker et familieportræt til en gave. Du får en digital fil i både farve og sort/hvid. Leveres via DropBox. Du kan også få et færdig print. Jeg printer selv i op til A3+ og via Grafik & Foto kan jeg tilbyde større print og indramning.

Portrait photography is my big passion. I still have a lot to learn from other photographer. so I'm always on the look for inspiration among fellow photographers - amateurs as professionals. I got a new follower on Twitter. That is always nice :-) His name is Aaron Anderson. I went straight to his portfolio and was blown away, Just my style og superb handling of light and retouching. Aaron Anderson blog Aaron Anderson portfolio

Portrætfotografering er en af mine fotografiske interesser. Derfor var det ned spænding, at jeg på Lousiana købte fotobogen "MÆND" med portrætter taget af fotografen Robin Skjoldborg. Magen til unik samling af intense mandlige portrætter skal man lede længe efter. Meget inspirerende. Billeder af musikere og skuespillere er ligeledes ledsaget at interessant tekster. Robin mestre det intense og dragende element i sine portrætter. Man har svært ved at slippe billedet. Bravo - en dansk fotobog, som alle portrætfotografer bør unde dig selv som inspirationskilde.

Coaching is a very personal interaction between two people - the trusted adviser and the answer seeking person, who need guidance. This assignment was a series of photos to be used on a company webpage. Gro Coaching is advising teenagers and hence the photos has to signal a calm, relaxed and easy environment. The gross photo collection was app. 250 photos. My first sorting reduced this to 218 photos. The client selected 18 for the final delivery. My task was not to crop - just to do basic adjustments and exposure corrections. I used a Nikon D800 with two SB-910, soft box on one flash (direct light) and the built-in diffuser on the second flash (indirect light to the wall). Both flash was controlled by PocketWizard Flex TT + MiniTT1 + AC3.

Working as a professional photographer is rewarding. Not two work situations are alike, and you get to meet interesting people. :-) Recently I was asked to shoot both some pack shots (various "dead" objects) and a male model in various work situations in the office of the company - GTS Nordic - who is a service provider of employment and payroll solutions. They help both Danish and international companies and expats with compliance when having temporary work in Denmark. I faced two challenges - the lighting set-up and the 16:9 format often used for modern webpages. For the lighting set-up I used two Elinchrome compact flash units and some soft boxes: Elinchrome D-Lite-it 2/4 To Go Kit + ELS Transmitter Elinchrom Portalight Softbox Elinchrom EL-Strip 33 x 175 cm My Nikon D800 is set to M-mode and exposure is set to ISO 100, 1/60 - 1/80 sec and somewhere between f/7.1 - f/16. It is all about trying to place the light in various angles to the subject...

Vinteren er endelig kommet til Danmark, og solen stod op kl. 8.39. Så jeg greb mit Nikon D800 og monterede den nye Sigma AF 24-105mm f/4 ART og gik mod Dyrehaven - en offentlig park og dyrereservat - nord for København  med det mål at fange nogle smukke vintermorgen scener.

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: