In Undead Colors: Red

One of the many beautiful costumes from this years International Carnival Parade at Aalborg Carnival.
The British Carnival group Mandinga Arts had teamed up with Hasseris Gymnasium to create the most amazing and well-executed themes of the entire parade, a Mexican Day of the Dead tribute.

Review: Stories of Home

I just finished reading the eBook “Stories of Home” by photographer Kate Densmore.
I had been looking forward to reading it for a while, but other things kept distracting me until now. In retrospective that were a bit silly as the lessons learned in this book could have been really useful to have practiced through the long dark winter.

Kate Densmore specializes in taking pictures of families in their “natural habitat” and judging from the many beautiful pictures in the book, she prefers a 35mm lens and really knows how to put it to good use.

The book, coming just short of 200 pages isn’t the kind of book that offers advises about choice of focal length, ISO and other technical stuff, even though these issues does pop up from time to time. No, it is more the kind of book that tells you what to look for when you want to capture the big (and little) moments in family life. So, if you are looking for a recipe-book, Scott Kelby style, you will be disappointing. But, if you are interested in a more guidance oriented approach that more describes which moments to look for and what to try to avoid, you have come to the right place.

Kate Densmore writes in a straight-forward way that describes her way of working in a very private and intimate environment, and the way she writes really emphasizes that this is less about the technical aspects of photography and more about learning to captures moods and telling stories.

The book is split up in three parts, each covering different aspects of the topic:

  • Documentary Family Photography
  • Everyday Fine Art
  • The Art of an Ordinary Day

Each part guides you through the process of capturing the special moments of your family life, be it on special occasions or just a regular day and throughout the book you find beautiful pictures that are used to underline the points made in the text, and you also find some creative exercises, which in some cases seems to have been thrown in as an afterthought. (Or maybe I am just not the kind of guy who throws the book over his shoulder to pursue some creative exercise).

You will also find interviews with three other family photographers, which share their motivation and workflow. This works well as it sometimes gives the same takeaway point, but put in other words.

All in a very good book, well worth the price. it has given me some new inspiration and shown me what family photography can also be. Most people regard family photos as merely snapshots, but maybe we should actually put more effort into these pictures as they really cover the most precious moments in life. As Kate Densmore writes in the conclusion:

“Treat your everyday images like art. Respect yourself and what you do, and honor your story and the story of those you love. No one is ever going to care about your work unless you care, deeply.”

I highly recommend reading this book. You can buy it over at Craft & Vision

End Of The Lines (Lo-Fi vol. II, 20/20)

Back in 2015 I released a collection of images with only one thing in common: they were all taken with a smartphone and processed in Snapseed. Other than that they didn’t really have much in common.
Since then I have continued to take pictures with my smartphone and process them in Snapseed, but this time trying to make them all kinda “fit” as part of a collection, being more “gritty” and “Lo-Fi
By the end of November 2016 I were finally so close to being satisfied that I decided that I would release this collection.
It is a bit different from what I usually do, but I think I needed to try something else for a while.
This is the 20th and final picture in my collection “The Lo-Fi Collection Vol. II: Gritty and grungy.

Faceless Punk (Lo-Fi vol. II, 19/20)

Back in 2015 I released a collection of images with only one thing in common: they were all taken with a smartphone and processed in Snapseed. Other than that they didn’t really have much in common.
Since then I have continued to take pictures with my smartphone and process them in Snapseed, but this time trying to make them all kinda “fit” as part of a collection, being more “gritty” and “Lo-Fi
By the end of November 2016 I were finally so close to being satisfied that I decided that I would release this collection.
It is a bit different from what I usually do, but I think I needed to try something else for a while.
This is the 19th of 20 pictures in my collection “The Lo-Fi Collection Vol. II: Gritty and grungy.

Lifescan (Lo-Fi vol. II, 18/20)

Back in 2015 I released a collection of images with only one thing in common: they were all taken with a smartphone and processed in Snapseed. Other than that they didn’t really have much in common.
Since then I have continued to take pictures with my smartphone and process them in Snapseed, but this time trying to make them all kinda “fit” as part of a collection, being more “gritty” and “Lo-Fi
By the end of November 2016 I were finally so close to being satisfied that I decided that I would release this collection.
It is a bit different from what I usually do, but I think I needed to try something else for a while.
This is the 18th of 20 pictures in my collection “The Lo-Fi Collection Vol. II: Gritty and grungy.

Why are you posting pictures?

I recently wondered “Why am I posting pictures at all?” It does not make me rich. Or famous. So why bother?

I guess part of the answer is a need to be recognized. But the sad truth is that the Internet is flooded with pictures and the chance that mine would stand out is quite small, no matter how hard I try. So why bother?

Another part of the answer is that photography is about creating. And if you create you want the stuff you create to be “used”. If not, why bother? Creating without purpose doesn’t really make sense.

So, even though posting pictures to this site, or social medias doesn’t make me rich and famous, it does serve a purpose. To keep my desire to create alive.