Finally something new

Now I have finally started again after the holidays. The first project we did was to take again photos of something white on a white background and something black on a black background. The main reason why we did it again was because last year we made it to complicated and it didn't look so good.

Now I'm working on environmental portraits and traditional food. We had to find something connected to the 1700th so I decided to take photos of the food at that time, that won't be so hard because at this time of year we eat a lot of food from that time. I will take those photos this week or next weekend so hopefully I can post them here soon

I bought a camera of ebay and it arrived few days ago its Zorki S its a copy of leica and was manufactured around 1956. I already took a roll of film and i am really happy with it. I'm trying to use it more and more but unfortunately I don't have that much time because of all the other works that I have in school.

Until next time

Surviving in a post apocalyptic world

This is a new project that I'm working on, this photo I made for the final project for the first term in my school. I made some more sketches and I'm going to make a series of photos. I want it to look like a story and when you see them you will feel like you are watching a movie or even reading a book, I want people to feel like they want to know more. Before I made this photo I had to do research work, both about other photographers that make photo manipulation and post apocalyptic world. I watched several movie´s like "I am legend" with Will Smith, "The Road" with Viggo Mortensen and "The Book of Eli" with Denzel Washington. I'm going to go deeper into the concept of post apocalyptic.

When I introduced this photo to my class I was asked how many photos I had to get from the internet but I can proudly say that I used only my photos, I took all of them for this project except the fire and the silhouette men's, they are actually Thai guards. The wall was originally not broken so I had to find several broken wall's to break the wall. The photo of the guy was taken in the studio in my school.

few days until holiday

There are only 2more days left of school until I get a Xmas break. I will probably just go home to my town and work. I have promised my-self that I would do some more photoshop work during d holiday's I have to practice more to get bater. I am also going to take some photos with my Olympus camera that I can work on after the holiday's. I have been doing many things for the past few weeks, a lot of things in school. I have been so busy with school for the past month.

Photo essay
It all started with the photo essay. I went to a home for old people and I was allowed to go around with one old man to see how life is at a home like this. His name is Viggo and he has two horses, that he cares so much about. He goes horse back riding as often as he can, but now its hard because its winter and it is so cold. His horses are outside for now but he said that he will bring them into the sable soon. I went with him out to see his horses and I ate with him in the cafeteria, it was really interesting to see, I thought that it would not be fun to live in a place like this but after spending some time with him I realized it must be kind of nice, he has his own apartment, even tough its not big, it is still big enough for him. His wife died about 10 years ago and I could see that he misses her. He told me stories about his life and we even watched some videos. He told me many things about having horses and it was really interesting. I wish I could have spent a bit more time on this project and I am thinking of going there again to take more photos of him and his horses.

Black and White
There was another project to take photo of something black on a black and white on white. I decided to take a photo of Coca Cola and milk, it was a great challenge but after a while and with some friends help I managed to get a good result. I had the glasses on a table, the milk on white and coca cola on black, I used only one light and reflectors while photographing the black but I used a light from above and a honey comb on the right side, I used some reflectors as well. I did some photoshop work but not to much.

Industrial
I made an industrial serie, where i took photos of a man making custom made shoes. It was an interesting process and I never could have imagined that it was so much work. It was all done by hands, except fore the time when he used the sewing machine but its not even an electric machine. He said it is expensive to get shoes but because he is making them for people with special needs, then the government pays 90% of the shoes, so its not as expensive for the costumer. I like this serie so much, but I want to do another industrial serie where something is as much hand made as this.

Architecture
I had to take one more photo for the architecture project the one I did earlier, because the teacher wanted a photo at winter time and in the twilight. So I went to the museum again early in the morning to photograph a house there, it was not even open yet. I think I captured a good one and I am lot happier with that photo than the once I did before. At December 6th we will have an exhibition of some of the photos we took there and I am deferentially going to use this one

Now I am trying to finish the final works, I am planing on making a photo manipulation and I want to make a scene like "post apocalyptic" but I want to have at least one person left. During the weekend I am planing the shots and sketching it up. I want to take some photos in the studio and put them into a photo of a street view. I will post it on t

15. October

It has been to long since I wrote here. I have been busy in school as always, I finished several projects, the one with the sheep's and an unusual sport photography. I have been taking photos in the studio in my school, last week we were taking photos of some teachers and students in my school and it was a good practice, we had to tell them where to look and what to do it was a lot of fun.

Sheep Roundup

In the sheep project we had to take photos of a sheep's roundup, or anything connected to that. First it was hard, I had to come up with an idea to connect it all together. I decided to take photos from the sheep's perspective and try to capture the moments before they go into the big truck. I went to two round ups, one was far out of town, it was not so big but thankfully more sheep's than people but later I went to a small roundup close to the city with hobby farmers and there were almost more people than sheep's, but I got the photos and they were not bad.

Sport

I decided to take photos of chess. Some people my not admit that it is a sport but it is. I'm not sure why its called a sport but its not up to me to decide. In this project we had to freeze action, have movement in the picture and some other things I'm just going to post two of the photos cause I'm not to happy with the other two. Since there is not much fast action in chess, I decided to crank it up a little and also so people would smile when they see it. The first photo I used remote flash to freeze the frame, I wanted to make the photo really sharp, a bit like "Dave Hill" stile. The second one I was standing in a ladder above the players and since I don't have a hight enough tripod I had to hold my camera while taking the photo 2.2 seconds, trying to make the table below stay sharp. It was a lot of fun, specially when we were freezing the photo cause we made a lot of noise while doing it.

I guess this is all for now.

Until next time

26. September

These past weeks I have been really busy, both in school and after. I have been working on my second darkroom project, its about texture and shape. We have to take two photos of shapes and two photos of texture. I will finish it tomorrow and I will try to post some.

I also had a architecture project and we had to take both inside and outside the house. It was something that I have never done before so it was really interesting. We had to make an HDR inside the house and we could do just any work on the outside. We had to take one photo of the whole house and also something that makes the house different from other. We had to take the photos of houses in one museum in Reykjavik and its called Arbaejarsafn and it has mostly old houses from around Iceland. We will also take photo of the same house later this winter probably when there is some snow. In December we are going to have a photo exhibition in this museum with the photos that we took in this project.

I also have been working on a project with sheep's its the forth digital project in school, the third was about taking photos of a painting and color correcting it with a McBeth ColorChecker. I will be working on the sheep project in school next week. Hopefully it will be finished before next weekend so I can post them here.

Well I think thats about everything that happend this past two weeks.

until next time...

12. September

For the past week I have really busy with school. I went to a lecture with Anna Ósk Erlingsdóttir and it was really educating. She has mostly been taking fashion photography and she has had photos on covers of several magazines. She studied in Australia and stayed there for about 2 years. She told us that we have to practice to get bater and we are the only once that can promote us.

I spent some time in the darkroom in my school and I was still working on my first assignment, I have not finished it yet but the rest of the images will come when they have dried up. The assignment was "The way to school" and it had to be something about our trip to school. I decided to make like a story, the things I would do on my way to school. The first one is the breakfast, the muffin and some chocolate milk. The second one is a woman waiting for the bus at the bus stop. The third one is the bus arriving at the bus stop and picking up passengers. I will put descriptions for the other 3 when I have uploaded

them....

Now we are working on an architecture photography and also an assignment on sheep's roundup. We will also be working with studio lights next week mainly taking photos of other photos or paintings. I'm exited about that assignment because I have not had much experience with studio lights so it will be something new for me.

I will be working hard this next week because I have to prepare works and start the second darkroom assignment.

Until next week.

5. September 2010

Few days ago I was browsing the web and I found a homemade light box and I decided to try to make one on my own. I took one of the boxes I used when I was moving few days ago, I cut holes on both sides of the box and then I taped baking paper over them. It seems to work fine but I have to try it a bit batter.

If you click on the photo you can see it larger.

Last Thursday I went to a photo lecture with Ken Opprann a Norwegian photographer. He has traveled to more than sixty countries and has published widely in Norway. He came to Iceland because his new book is being published here. The book is called Faith. He has been taking photos for this project for many years alongside his work, when he travels he always stays extra days to work on this project. It mainly is about faith and when people are doing things that concern their religion. I recommend people to check out Opprann’s photos they are quite good.

In school I have been working on a street photography project, it’s been a bit hard, but fun as well. We only got to stay on a small area of town, but it’s ok because there are still many things to photograph there. Its the first project that we use digital cameras, we already had one with black and white film, I developed mine last week and I hope they all look good. I will try to post some next weekend.