I originally got into photography because I have a bad memory. I can never remember anything about the places I’ve been. Unless you show me a picture of the exact place. Then everything comes flooding back.
Back in those days everything ran on steam and we didn’t have cameras in our phones. So I bought a camera. The pictures were disappointing. They didn’t represent what I was seeing. So I bought increasingly more expensive cameras and was consistently disappointed. I needed something next-level, so I bought a DSLR. A Nikon D7100. A ‘proper’ camera with interchangeable lenses. Surely this would produce fantastic images. It did not.
Faced with the fact that better cameras do not make better images, I had to become a better image maker. A better photographer and a retoucher, as it turned out.
I discovered that by using digital editing tools, I could bring out the image I saw from the image I took. I started out using Cyberlink Photo Director, presumably because I had it lying around. I started to see my pictures as wall-worthy and started thinking about turning landscape and nature shots into something someone might want to buy.
I enrolled in Michael Bang’s “Photography Business Bootcamp”, a 3 month process which started in August 2014. During the first ‘live’ session Michael asked us all an interesting question: “What kind of photographer are you?”. The answer was simple, I was a landscape photographer but Michael followed everyone’s answer up with “How do you know?”. The point being how do you know that you’re not a wedding photographer, a product photographer or even a model photographer if you haven’t tried.
We were given the challenge to go home and experiment with other types of photography, so soon after I signed up for a meetup for amateur photographers and models in Aalborg and this is where it all started for me. I didn’t know what I was doing and the resultant photos were rubbish but I discovered something during my first shoot of the day with Pia.
One of my fellow course mates was a quite experienced model photographer, Jesper Kofoed. I asked him for some advice on working with models and he gave me this nugget: Give your models lots of positive feedback throughout the shoot. This, it turns out, is excellent advice. Show your enthusiasm, Share how good you think the shots are. Tell the model how good they look and how well the poses are working.
Pia went from being nervous and uncomfortable to positively beaming during that shoot. I could see it in the photos. This was enormously rewarding and from that moment I had a new goal: Become a model photographer. I had a lot of work ahead of me. Even with 2023 me’s retoucing skills and tools, this is what the best photo of Pia I took that day:
Pia did great but I was rubbish and the cheapo 50mm on my D7100 had the worst chromatic aberation at f1.4. The worst thing was that I had pictures in my head that I wanted to take but I couldn’t realise them. I knew what I wanted but I didn’t know what I was doing. I had work to do.
I learned a lot from CreativeLive courses, especially Sue Bryce who was a great inspiration until she started her own website and the whole thing started turning into a bit of a cult. Never the less a learned a lot from her courses. Also Felix Kunze’ courses on lighting were immensely interesting. I started learning how to shoot with intent and how to light with purpose. I progressed to a Nikon D800 full frame and a nicer 85mm lens and started taking better shots.
Sue Bryce is also quite an experienced retoucher and got me into PhotoShop and layers and dodge-and-burn the photo retouching process that goes all the way back to the original black-and-white negative prints and a process I utterly swear by to this very day.
Better control of the camera, the environment, cooperation with the model (knowing what you want) combined with digital retouching gives me the results I want today.
But it took some time to get here and there were some projects and challenges along the way. But more about them some other day!
Nkon D800 September 2014
Nikon D7100 July 2014
eBog: Aldrig Mere Auto – Sådan Indstiller Du Manuelt Dit Kamera 150DKK July 2014
Macro September 2011
Glamour Photography with Sue Bryce August 2014
Photography Business Bootcamp Michael Bang August 2014