Mountains

The norwegian mountains are beautiful.
We have really enjoyed ourselves for a couple of days now, hiking, breathing in fresh air, eating great food, litting the fireplace and just recharging the batteries after a pretty tiresome week. I know for sure that this is a place we will be visiting often, just a couple of hours from Oslo and so quiet, peaceful and relaxing. Love it.

Duvets & Llamas

Started the day shooting a whole bunch of different duvets for a newly started magazine. We did the shoot in the woods with slight rain coming down, with one of the duvets priced at about 1.000€ I´m glad the condition of the duvets after the shoot was not my responsibility. I think it all went okey though.

In the afternoon I went to pick up Trine cause we were heading to the mountains to her fathers cabin, a beautiful completely new cabin that is. It´s about a 3,5 hour drive and since we left Oslo rather late we had to drive in the dark. No roadlights for the last two hours, so after seeing nothing but the road in front of the car for some time I got a little shocked when my frontlights lit up what seemed to be some animals on my right hand side. And there, out of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere some llamas hung out. Such cute animals. They are related to camels I believe.

zzznork

Got to the studio at 08.30 this morning, now it´s 23.30 and I´m considering going home, my eyes want to rest. But still so much work that needs to be finished. But I´m not complaining, I´m just a bit tired.

Workaholic

I´m approaching hour number twelve at work today, been retouching all day long and now I´m preparing the photoshoot to take place tomorrow. I have to be prepared before taking pictures or I´ll not be able to sleep the night before. Tomorrow it will just be loads of packshots so it´s not that complicated but still, preparation is the key to a good nights sleep. I´ll probably top todays twelve hours easy tomorrow with lots and lots of work that needs to be finished before heading to the mountains thursday afternoon. But I´d rather work all day than doing nothing, I take it as a good sign that not long after starting out on my own I have loads of work to do.
Back in to the studio to test some lighting before heading to Trine for some tea and cookies with CSI on tv.
Piz.

Tv 3

I like the topmodel-show on television. Although todays show was not very impressive, first of all that whole episode of the nearlyfainting got just stupid with all the crying and stuff. And second of all, they do the photoshoot in Norway, why not use a norwegian photographer? That french or italian or something photographer that they use sucks, the pictures looked so extremely boring it kinda freaks me out.

And what's up with the kelloggs commercial where the main character is cheating on his wife, who came up with the idea and why did the client accept it?
Weird.

Anyway, I did my first truly commercial assignment today and it went fairly well. It seemed as if the ad.agency was happy at least so then I'm happy as well. Kudos to the fantastic model who really saved the day, (happy now Trine?).
Got a whole lot of retouching to do, so I'll probably sit in front of my mac for about 12 hours or so tomorrow.


Me, myself and I hanging out with Knut Bry at a Kreativt Forum party.

Just the pix

Here are the pictures by themselves.

H&M

About one month ago I took some portraits to be used in a magazine issued by H&M. It was four portraits of young norwegian creatives talking about how they gain and use their creativity. The magazine is currently to be found in H&M stores all over the country I believe, at least all the shops that has "young trend" in their collection. I was fairly pleased with the pictures I took but I´m not to excited about the graphic work that was done on the article afterwards. You can have a look yourself, feel free to tell me what you think about the pictures as well as the spread.

Thanks.

Long Hours

Yesterday I was showing some of my pictures to a magazine called Natt & Dag, got the feeling they liked some of it. Hopefully they did, would be nice to shoot some pictures for them. Met Trine for a cup of coffee before heading to my part-time job for the remainder of the day. I work two weekends a month at a community for people with different disabilites. A very rewarding job actually. After work I went to the birthdayparty of a friend of mine, loved it, been a while since I hung out with that crowd.

Had my breakfast at McDonalds today, don´t think I have done that since maybe like 6-7 years ago. Not my(trine´s) idea though. Went to pick up some clothes for the photoshoot on monday before heading to work at the community again. Just got back from there now, need to get some sleep before heading back up there again tomorrow morning.


Some of my records.

Fashionfinito

Ahh, nothing beats the feeling you get once a photoshoot is finished and the result is pleasing. The weather turned out great after a couple of cloudy hours and we got to shoot for a good 5 hours. The model (Ulrikke at Topmodels) was really easy to work with and she looks beautiful on the pictures. We´ll see if we can convince some magazine to print the series but either way I will post some of the pictures here when they are done, or when published. Two days in a row working about 12 hours a day now, and it will last for at least three more days. That´s about 60 hours in 5 days. Can´t wait to go to the mountains next thursday with my girlfriend, that will be 4-5 days with pure relaxation. Perfect.

New Design

Decided to change the design of my blog, didn´t really like the one I had, but as a blogrookie I just chose the first and best template I found. More happy with the looks of my site now, although all the links I had added suddenly disappeared, will post them again soon. It´s getting late and I have to get up in a couple of hours so a little bit of sleep would probably be a smart thing.

Martin visited me in the studio today. Went to the roof of course.

Work around the clock

Went to work early today, had a couple of meetings and took some portraits of my friend Martin. Got assigned to a new commercial job today, to be photographed monday morning. That´s cool. I´ll be working about 12 hours a day from today and until monday, pretty tiring but that´s the way I like it. It´s when I don´t have anything to do, no work-related thoughts or nothing to prepare that I freak out, I need something to keep my mind busy.

The weather report for tomorrow is about the same as it was today and today it was a great, warm and sunny day. The photoshoot looks promising. Back to my folks place now to borrow their car. Need to get myself some kind of transportation vehicle.

Record of the day: Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Ouch!!

My ass, my back and my neck hurts as hell.
Played football with some friends of mine yesterday and managed to slip while running at full speed, landing on my back. Being two meters and a good 100 kg that´s alot of human being falling. Rumours has it that it was viewable on the Richters scale. Poor me.

Was in the studio retouching and surfing the net for a couple of hours but after a quick lunch with my good friend Kai I went home, my ass doesn´t like sitting on chairs at the moment. Everything is now ready for the shoot thursday so I´m just keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will be nice. Added a couple of more links to other great photographers today, if anyone know about someone that they feel should have a link here let me know.

Bit tired

Been in Stavanger this weekend with a busload of friends, literally. The official reason to go was to watch football, the unofficial to have great fun and drink loads of beer. Managed to do both. But since we weren´t home before 6 am this morning after almost 10 hours riding the bus home I´m still a bit tired.

Got this link in the mail today, pictures from an exhibition by the artist Banksy held in Los Angeles for VIP´s only, that guy is so f***ing creative that it just blows my mind. If I was making that art, being famous and selling pieces for 100k and upwards I seriously don´t think I would be able to stay anonymous.

Really looking forward to the fashion shoot I´m doing thursday, been a while since I have done one and I´m really eager to create something with quality. I´m happy with the model we´re using and hopefully the stylist will find a lot of cool stuff as well. I´ll post some pictures here when it´s done.

Well, football practice in a couple of hours.

Cheers

Art & Food

Now this has been one lazy day. Slept loooong, watched a couple of "Six Feet" episodes before I took a quick swing by the studio. Got the model for next weeks fashion shoot settled so that was nice. Beside that Trine and me went to see the annual fall exhibition at the house of artists, it presents work with a very wide range of expressions within contemporary art. Quite a few pieces I really liked there, cool to see a photograph taken by a friend of mine hanging up there as well. After a couple of hours viewing it was time to grab a bite. We went to one of my favourite restaurants in town, Mother India at Bislet. It has one of best Indian kitchens in Norway, and as a huge fan of Indian food I`m almost a regular customer. Will be leaving very early tomorrow morning for Stavanger and will be back around sunrise monday morning.

Enjoy the weekend, Piz.

House with a view

Sitting in bed with my girlfriend watching some episodes of the fantastic series "Six Feet Under". It´s without doubt one of the greatest tv-productions ever, surpassed only by Sopranos. Bit tired now after spending all afternoon photographing this event up at the Holmenkollen Park Hotel. It has a fantastic view covering the entire city of oslo, really great. Todays sunset didn´t make it any worse. Well, something tells me Trine doesn´t love me focusing only on my mac while I´m at her place.
Pictures are of a fantastic violinist and some really charming girls, both wearing norwegian national costumes and both were performing during the event.

W'day

One of the photographers I share studio with recently hired a new assistent, and while I was having my lunch(at the roof of course) he managed to lock the door with the wrong lock, or at least the lock to which I don´t have the key. So had to wait for an hour and a half for another guy to let me in to get my stuff.
Earlier today I went to a meeting with an ad agency, that went fairly well I think.
Also got a job today taking pictures for some event up in Holmenkollen, couple of hours work and it pays good. That will be done tomorrow. The basketball pictures also got settled, probably shooting that next week. I also have to find the model that I want to use in next weeks fashion shoot.

Gotta eat some now before going to basketball practice.

Mum & Dad

My parents, still very much in love after 30 years together. Rather inspiring I must say. I love my folks.

Locationscouting

A big part of photography is finding all the places that the pictures are to be taken. If it is in the studio it´s easy, but most pictures are taken on location, and preferably a cool location. So then you have to go out there and look, today I have been at a lake up in the forest where I´m from. It is a beautiful place and I took some pictures there for a possible fashion shoot next week. I´m posting a couple of pictures from the location as well as a portrait of three old fellas that were taking a little walk up there.

Later this evening I´m meeting my girl for a trip to the movies, we´re going to see a new Norwegian film called Reprise. Looking forward to it, has gotten great reviews.

I´m also most likely going to shoot some pictures of a professional basketballteam, I believe the result could be very cool. Some creative slamdunkphotos with full lighting, beats all the boring newspaper pictures of basketball anyhow.

Later

Manic Monday

Well, not quite. Got up about 10, took a shower and met my girl. We went to the roof above my studio to have some coffee and enjoy what is probably one of the last days with great weather this year. Since I didn´t have anything particular I had to get done today it became another 2 hour lunchbreak, have to try not making a habit out of it. So the pictures are my girlfriend Trine at the rooftop, obviously. I´m gonna take a picture later on and then head to Nadderud Stadium to see Stabæk kick some Bergen ass in the main divison in Norwegian Soccer. Looking forward to it.

End of the week

Another week and another weekend has passed. My girlfriend has been with her family in the mountains this weekend and I have been working. I´m pretty tired now so I guess I´ll sleep a little longer then usual tomorrow. Have some office work to do and I´m going to photograph this up and coming rockband as well, I think I´ll get about 10 minutes or so to create my magic but hopefully I can make a picture or two look okey. I´ll probably post the one I like the most here when it´s done.

Sleep tight. Don´t let the bedbugs bite´ya.

Fantastic Photographers #1

There are so many great photographers out there that it freaks me out just thinking about it. About three times a day I´m reconsidering my options as far as my career goes. Should I pursue a career within photography or should I just apply to the university, educate myself to be a teacher and have a safe income until my time is over. But in the end I know that I can´t do anything else but take pictures, since I´m thinking about it 24/7 it would kill me not being able to do what I love the most. Well, anyway, since there are so dangerously much talent out there I will keep posting things that I like in this blog. First out is a couple of pictures from the New York based photographer Michael Thompson.

Record Cover

This is one of my latest jobs as a photographer, taking all the pictures to the debutrecord of artist Magnus Hængsle. I´m pleased with the result, think it looks cool and the music is very nice as well. All in all a record u should buy. The design and layout is done by a talented man named Harald Frøland, Magnus is signed to Forward Records.

Zup

Finally I have discovered the fabulous world of blogging and started my own little blog.
As the newly established photographer that I am this blog will include alot of photos and of course some words regarding photography and everything concerning the business. But since I´m not a onedimensional guy it will also include stuff about music, movies, art and everything else that plays a part of my life.

Well, that´s it for my first posting. I´m officially a blogger.

Cheers
Espen