Around New Years there are a lot of blogs “rounding up” the past year, so I had this idea that I would write a post about the people that really inspired me during 2010. I started it but time went, the draft was lying there poking at my attention and suddenly it was too late to wrap up 2010.
I thought I’d go along with the post anyway, but in a slightly different direction. I wanted to share my sources of inspiration, give you a chance to discover new people and listen to what they have to say and at the same time take the chance to give these people a big “Thank you!” for all the inspiration and motivation their hard work gives me and their community everyday.
There has always been a search for a creative outlet in me, starting with music and playing guitar. Nothing really stuck. I went to drama school in “gymnasiet” (kinda like high school over in the states) but there I shifted more against lighting the plays and taking care of the technical aspects rather than acting.
Some time ago I found the camera, and that really stuck!
Photo of me and my wife, taken by my wife.
What I’ve come to understand is that almost everyone has a great fear of failing. A fear that holds us back, that tells us that we are not worthy of reaching that next step, a fear of having someone tell you that what you are doing are wrong. When embracing your creativity and “putting it out there” you risk all these things and you might fail, someone might think you are wrong and you will ALWAYS doubt yourself.
A quote from Sir Ken Robinson before I’m done rambling:
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”
More from Sir Ken in a later post. Now first up on my list, Mr Chase Jarvis!
Chase Jarvis
Chase is a kick-ass commersial photographer from Seattle, US. I found him through this workflow video, and his work has inspired me ever since. He makes a lot of interviews and shares the voices of successful creative people in many different segments.
His Seattle 100 project is really amazing! Click the People link on the site and enjoy the beautiful black and whites!
Zack Arias
Zack is a great Music/Editorial photographer from Atlanta, US. I first saw him in an interview by Chase Jarvis, and been following him ever since. He’s made a beautiful video where he brings up the subject of creativity, doubting your talent and doubting you work. Check it out here (or in the embedded video below): Transform by Zack Arias.
Also if you’re interested in lighting photography then check out his One Light DVD.
I’d recommend you take some time and watch some of the videos above by both Chase and Zack, it’s worth it!
Stay tuned, more to come…oh!, and please share your inspirations with me in the comments below, thanks!
Yesterday was another evening of shooting live concerts in a local club here in Gothenburg. There seem to be a huge number of photgraphers wanting to shoot live music, yesterday I saw at least three other except me. I can’t remember ever seeing them before when I visited the clubs without photographing, could be because I’m less drunk when I’m shooting.
Anyway, yesterday Markus Bustad with his project Killing Game played support for Mr Jones Machine, and he performed flawlessly! Wish he’ll get the chance to play a live gig soon again. He was by himself on stage after his planned guitarist got sick, too bad but thats life sometimes.
Well I won’t ramble too much but I would like to say that I’m working on a post about inspiration and what has inspired me to, so stay tuned and peace!
This weekend I got the chance to shoot for my friend Markus Bustad who needed some photos for his music project Killing Game. We ended up shooting in an attic in Gothenburg, and it was a great place to shoot even though it was a little cramped. Nice grungy texture on the walls and also access to the roof where these two first shots were taken.
There was a lot of old stuff on the attic, a few of the storage spaces were even open and a great setting for photos.
To get to the attic you have to ride this really old worn down wooden elevator, so we figured we’d try a few shots in the elevator as well. It was really tight and I think im shooting this next one at 18mm on my lens, and I really like how the shot turned out.
Since we started talking about the shoot about a month ago I’ve had quite a few ideas, though most of them were scrapped for the time being. We did go along with one of Markus’ ideas though, but more about that later on as the image isn’t finished yet.
Tomorrow it’s time to shoot Markus during his live performace on Club Target, Henriksberg here in Gothenburg where he’s playing support for Mr. Jones Machine.
Last night I went to shoot two live concerts at a nearby club called The Station at Jazzhuset here in Gothenburg. Just finished editing it all and ended up with 22 photos. You can see them all on my Flickr. You will also find slideshows in the end of the post.
This was my first shoot with my new Sigma 70-200 2.8 II, and it really did live up to my expectations. It felt sharper than my Sigma 18-50 2.8 and I don’t know why. I heard about someone how had his lens recalibrated somewhere and it got a lot better, I’ll have to check up on that. Anyhow…
It was quite crowded around the scene, and there were like 3 or 4 other people who where all trying to get photos from right in front of the stage so I stayed back, found a place along the left wall where I could stand and reach above all of the audience. That’s kinda what I want, get those photos that the other people there won’t get. Another angle, another distance, another framing.
Guess that will do as a summary of last night and before I forget:
Thanks Carl and Hanna for hosting a great pre-party. Really envious of your apartment, even though ours are quite nice as well! Hope you will invite me back in the future!
Any questions about the shoot? Feel free to comment as much as you want!
Starting in January the magazine Kamera&Bild (Camera&Picture) are running a photo challenge. It will be running 10 stages during 2011 with the last one being in October and I’ve submitted pictures for the two first stages. It’s been mostly older photos so far, but I thought I’d share them with you guys.
The first one is of a girl I saw riding in a carriage when we visited Ronda in Spain. We went there on my birthday because I wanted to see the town and it’s enormous ravine that splits the city in two parts with only a bridge connecting them.
At one side of the ravine is a mansion that looks powerful and really old as it sits there watching the city. I regret us not going to get a closer look at it, but we were all very tired from driving the looong road up the mountain to get to the town of Ronda.
One day this summer when both me and my little sister was at my moms house I decided to take some photos of her dog Link. I think I caught the majestic and powerful posture that he has, even though he’s one of the nicest dogs I know. I not that into dogs actually, they are too attached and affectionate to make me comfortable but they are nice to meet every now and then.
I was in Nödinge Kyrka ( The Church in Nödinge ) and photographed the baptism of a friend’s daughter when I found this angel hanging from the roof. I’m usually very aware of my surroundings when photographing. If you don’t do this already I highly recommend taking a pause from the subject to look around for a second or two every now and then.
During the summer I love to take my camera and take a walk home from where I work. It takes about 40 minutes when not having the camera and double the time with the camera. This particular time I found this bird walking around on the pavement, he (lets assume that at least) just pranced around minding his own business. He looked so carefree, I got a little jealous…
This last one was an older photo I played around with in Photoshop. I’m conflicted if I really like the sky, I feels a little unnatural and “over the top” but still quite cool. I do love the blacks and whites in the city below the sky though. This was taken on a cold sunday evening from up at Skansen Krona in Gotheburg. Closest to the camera is Haga and then the rest of downtown Gothenburg following further in the photo.
This was all for now, I’ll try to update a little more often as the light is slowly arriving to Gothenburg again and I have a couple of projects planned for the spring. Next is probably another promo shoot in March, and I’ll try to shoot as much as I humanly can next to my regular work. I also have a Tumblr-idea forming, and I think I want to make a kind of lifestream-project going where I’ll try to post at least everyday, so stay tuned and I’ll keep you updated.
So it’s been a month since I set out on a challenge to do something new (graphicly) every day and it’s been a bumpy ride with both ups and downs. Well mostly ups, and it started out on a strong note but has admitadly ended abit slow.
But everything aside I thought I’d share my experience of this kind of challenge. First of all I’ve learnt that if I’m ever to do something like this again I need to set harsher goals for myself, just do “something” will without a doubt end up with taking easy ways out at times. And I believe that not just goes for me.
Also I found the anything goes approach I went really did nothing but dampen my creativity since there was a pressure of time but not on the actual results, so when times got short again it most likely led to an easy way out instead of a more creative way out. But before I back myself into a corner with using words like creative I’ll sum thing up abit.
If you wan’t to challenge yourself to do or learn something new, don’t stop at a timelimit. Time is an important factor, but shouldn’t be used as the main incentive.
Make sure that the challenge is instead in the tools or in the end results, a new or unfamiliar tool or end result.
Learning lies in trying, failing and then doing it better next time.
Well that’s it for me today, this challenge has resulted in me doing more stuff as was it’s main intent, but for what I’m doing next I’ll have to get my aim a little bit higher and force the learning curve abit higher.
Apparently I was somewhat hasty in posting my first version for the Fstoppers Monthly Photoshop Contest, it hadn’t really started yet. But that only gave me another shot at the same image with fresh eyes. So here’s my new entry for the competition.
So that cold that I feared a few days ago really broke out so I haven’t been doing anything creative for a few days. Even the thought of sitting by the computer made my fever go up 2 degrees. But something good came out of it all I managed to send out a few new applications for work, and now that I’m back on my feet I thought it was time to enter the fstoppers monthly photoshop contest.
Here’s the before and after pictures, I got the feel for the nautical theme and stuck with it.
I’m not sure how to categorize this image, I’ve been feeling a little bit off today and might be coming down with some sort of a cold. Not that something like that will stop me from doing more stuff, it just opens up some creative channel in me that won’t let itself be explained.
On the other hand, maybe not everything needs to be explained, that main thing is to put it out there for everyone to enjoy (or dislike if that’s your preference).
This is a collaboration project between Andreas Måneskiöld and Fredrik Pilo to spark our creativity and plunge us into the deep waters of having to publish our work. We always look for interesting projects and challenges so feel free to contact us if you have an idea or need some photos/graphics done. No project is too small or insignificant.
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