Malta shoot #2

The plan was to check for locations on Thursday and have the primary shoot, the test shoot for FHM Norway, on Friday with Saturday as a buffer day. Well, since no plan ever stays intact, I was not surprised when I got the call from the TV crew less then a week before the departure. That delayed me for two days. Then Iselin had to go home already, since she had got a new job.

So the main shoot had to be on Saturday, an extra day for Iselin on Sunday, sending out a proposal for a bikinishoot on Malta on Monday, shoot Heidi an extra day on Tuesday, having a fashion shoot for a luxury club, Club TwentyTwo, on Wednesday and then *poff* - the week was gone.

Most of the images are commercial from these shoots, so I just add some of the behind the scenes shots Martin took and some pictures we got, just having a training shoot with Heidi in the harbor below Martin's apartement. I had to show my Malta assistants how to handle a rock-n-roll shoot - when you carry all the equipment and shoot while moving. Perfect for crowded locations or locatons where you might not get permission to shoot...

I hope you notice one thing: if you joing us for a shoot on Malta - we will shoot a lot! Be prepare to work hard, but also to have a lot of pictures with you back home.

Why do we choose to go to Malta to shoot?

1. The light. Even during winter/rain season there is always a couple of days with sun
2. The temperature. We shot Heidi on the balcony only dressed in baby oil and a scarf. That would not been pleasant in Sweden right now.
3. The locations. There are plenty of locations, indoor and outdoor just around the corner. Ancient, modern, nature, luxury - all close. Martin and Chris are scouting them as we speak.
4. The people. There are a lot of nice, helpful, friendly people on Malta. That makes a job like mine a whole lot easier and a hell of a lot more fun!
5. The party. Well... There are a lot of nice clubs in Malta. Those moments off-duty can be a lot of fun there. :-)
   

Hope to see ya there on the next shoot!

Getting late to Malta

I went to the airport with the models, Heidi and Iselin, and the make-up artist/hair stylist Rebecka, to the Skavsta [NYO] on Wednesday and that was pretty smart of me. Of course they had to much luggage all except one. Rebecka even had to leave a plastic bag full of stuff just to get the weight down to 15 kilos on her check-in bag.

Why did I not join the Wednesday flight? I was part of a Swedish TV show and they would not be finished with shooting until Friday. When I was spending time in front of a camera (which I hate) them ladies were having a tour on Malta with our dear friend and local celebrity actor, Steffen, where giving un-healty cake and some nice wine. (Why do they always get the best part of a shoot?)

I finished shooting late on Thursday evening, arrived at Arlanda [ARN] on 2.30 in the morning on Friday after a really hectic week. You feel really glamourous sleeping in a noisy (they where doing construction works) departure hall on a marble bench, always with a hand on your EUR 40.000 camera bag.
Then you pay EUR 270 for the extra weight and get on the plane at 6.25. I fell asleep at once and woke up when they landed.

"Welcome to Arlanda!"

WTF!?
A window cracked in cockpit and they had to return. As being a pilot myself, I bonded with the crew and saw a picture of it. It happened while they where climbing through 28.400 feet. Thankfully it was just a middle layer of the multi-layer safty glass there.

After spending three (3!) hours in line to get a new ticket, 4 hours in Frankfurt and a nice time chatting with the crew of Malta Air - I finally arrived at MLA 22.30 on the Friday. Half dead...

I got a great welcome by the ladies and Martin in his apartment and a couple of drinks later I was perfectly OK. :-)

Models needed for magazine shoots on Malta

After speaking to the Danish magazine M! and the Norwegian magazine FHM they addressed an interest of having a collaboration with Morre Photography. This first shoot could be considered as a test: if we make great pictures they will get published and it will probably be the start of a beautiful friendship.

To get the best pictures possible, my local crew have booked a super nice location in Malta. Why stay at home in the dark, cold, winter when you can be in a much warmer, beautiful island in the middle of The Mediterranean?

I need (at least) 2 models for this glamour shoot so you have to do at least c2- but since we will get more commercial pictures with more categories, c3- models will have an upper hand.

There might be time over for more pictures, so if you are a model and would like to join as an "assistant" to help out and then get some shots also, please add that in your application. A return trip with Ryanair from Stockholm (NYO) to Malta (MLA) is only about EUR 30 right now and you will all have free accommodation.

If you do not bother about the details below - sign up via this form:

http://morre.se/models/apply/

Please add pictures relevant for this shoot.

*Details

Travel and accommodation are paid for the chosen M! & FHM models.
Accommodation are paid for joining models.
Oh! The big VIP Saturday night out is fully paid for all. :-)

I will be on Malta December 10-17:th and the main shoot will be one or two days between Thursday 11:th to Saturday 13:th. That gives you those travel dates of Ryanair's NYO-MLA flight schedule:
Wed 10-Wed 17 Dec
Wed 10-Sun 14 Dec
Sun 14-Wed 17 Dec (not applicable for the M! & FHM models)

Here is the daily schedule:

Tuesday 9 Dec
before 22:00: Models have to arrive in Linköping
Wednesday 10 Dec
12:00 Travel from Linköping to NYO
19:30 Pick up at MLA by the Malta crew.

Thursday 11 Dec
Crew: prepare the location
Models: Day off with private tour of Malta

Friday 12 Dec
Shoot

Saturday 13 Dec
Extra time for shoot
Cocktail party @ Martin's (see picture)
VIP treatment on all the best clubs of Malta

Sunday 14 Dec
Malta crew & models: day off
14:00 Latest time at NYO for those traveling to Malta
17:30 Travel to MLA for those who choose to leave on Sunday
19:30 Pick up at MLA for those who arrive on Sunday
23.45 Pick-up in NYO by Linköping crew for those who went back

Monday 15 Dec
Day-off and/or spare time for shoots

Tuesday 16 Dec
Crew and maybe models: Fashion shoot for Malta Now magazine

Wednesday 17 Dec
Half day off
17:30 Travel to MLA
23.30 Land at NYO

Thursday 18 Dec
01:00 Sleeping in Linköping
xx:xx Travel home for models

Please write in Comments what dates you prefer to be on Malta! The weather will be warm (about 19° C) but during their winter, it might rain at least every second day, often not more than a couple of hours.

If the weather is nice, you might find yourself at a Mediterranean boat cruise. :-)

Send in your application via:

http://morre.se/models/apply/

Comedian and a nice ass

Dropped dead in my flat at about AM 2 on Thursday, got some hours of sleep and then packed all the gear in the trunk of a SAAB and headed for Malmö.

There I had a shoot for LKPG Magazine - a portrait of a Swedish comedian, Anders, from the creative duo Anders & Måns. The written piece for the magazine I got hold of minutes before I got in the car gave me nothing about him, just what he had done.
Not having an impressing means no angle of attack. For this shoot that was not all - I did not even had a location!

Thank god I have some friends running the restaurant at Mayfair Hotel in Malmö and they also have an old nightclub, Tunneln (The Tunnel), for rent. They kindly allowed my to use it for free and even gave me food and loads of Coca Cola, badly needed after days of traveling and lack of sleep.

Due to no input and lack of sleep, I was really blank until I met Anders. He showed out to be smart, fun and energetic so I just took it from there.
The good thing of working with an actor/comedian is that they are daring and have a lot of good faces to deliver. For them, a shoot for nothing compared to standing alone on a stage giving a stand-up.
To get some cool shots, I was running around in the abandoned nightclub turning sofas on their end just to get a colorful red background, using a half-dead plant I thought looked hilarious, and the lack of interesting clothes I gave him my favorite wool sweater and told him to ware it backwards.

Well - you tell me what you think of the images. The difference between these pictures and the finals ones is mostly the lightened plant and some small skin-errors that I corrected.

After the shoot with Anders, I had a training session since a friend of mine wanted a some nice pictures of her beautiful behind. The "poor" waitress of the restaurant had to volunteer as an assistent and had to apply the baby oil. As she said: That is not a bad start of getting to know someone. :-)

After the shoot, I once again find me driving late a night and of course it was horrible weather. Really glamorous job being a photographer...

First shoot in Malta

Malta - beautiful Malta!

Some of my friends have an office there and sitting home in the dark Swedish autumn I though it about time to check it out. The good thing about being a photographer is that you only need to bring you portfolio around to go look for work.

So in September I packed a bag, joined some friends and took Ryanair from Stockholm South (NYO) for meetings in Malta.
I met a lot of really nice professional people there and got my first assignment pretty much at once: a wedding promotion shoot for the five star Palace Hotel.
So I went back with just a backpack with my Hasselblad H3D-31 and three lenses, some Lastolite reflectors and my portfolio. I almost was not allowed on the plane by carrying to much hand luggage! They thought the folded reflectors looked to bulky. Anyway, I got on after some discussion.

Malta in a strange, ancient, fun and beautiful place! A lot of entreprenuers have moved there and the Maltese are cool but have a strange language. Oh! And the locals women are really gorgeous. Well, the island is scattered with models so I... I... really do not mind having a drink there.

Maretha had arranged the models and organised the shoot with locations, and a Rolls Royce from the car rental company Joe's Garage. Thank you Darryn, Nicole, Martin, Steffen, the cool driver and Maretha for a really fun, exhausting day. It was actually so exhausting my battery died. (I actually forgot to bring more than one battery handle on the trip...)

Beeing a photographer is a mix of having it really soft but also a lot of pressure. There is no point stressing during a shoot but on the other hand you never know what you would end up with, if the lights will be good, the location would work etc. For me, I really never can breathe properly until most of the shoot is done - if I have good pictures.

I just had started breathing after the shoot when it was time to rush to the airport.

2 racing hostesses on Friday, 26 Sept

My friend Erik Jirhall and his Gentleman Racing Club has arranged a racing day on Emmaboda airstrip this Friday, the 26:th of September. I will be there shooting video and pictures.
So, if you would like to get paid for writing down lap times, taking you picture among super cars (Lamborgini, Porsche, Ferarri etc) and ride some of the cars - your are the right person.

Send in an application via the form on my web site (click here).

The day starts at 09.00 and ends about 17.00, so you will have to get up early. There are a lot of cars coming from all over Sweden so getting you there in time will be no problem. If you want to ride with me in our lovely Longboard.eu WV bus, you can get to Linköping.

See ya!

New date for spa indoor: 12 October

I just spoke to Johanna at Studio Paus and she has almost decided on what dark haired female and male model to use, but not the blond female one. So for all of you and especially blond females - you still have time to apply!

Send in via this form.

Beauty/spa models wanted for a September shoot

The outdoor pictures for Studio Paus where shot on Gotland in July (see earlier post) and now, when the makeover of the beauty salon is finished, the time has come to shoot the indoor pictures.
So now I need 2 female models and 1 male model for these beauty treatment shots in Stockholm. The models should preferably be tall (male > 180 cm; female > 173 cm), fresh, fit, good hair & skin and the female should be curvy (natural looking C-D cups).

This is a low-budget friends assignment (I work for free) but a somewhat nice deal you models, and that is paid travel expenses and beauty treatments to book for SEK 1.500 at Studio Paus. Oh! And of course - you will get real treatments during the shoot. Not a bad day at the office! :-)

The time is planned for Saturday 20:th of September or later, depending on you models and the availability of the salon.

Interested? Send in an application via: http://morre.se/models/apply/

Tip of the day: Apply first - ask questions later. We always check by phone with the interesting models before booking date and time.

Post Ar

Well... It is not perfect working away from civilization. After carrying everything back to the car and hit the road, it was four very thirsty, hungry and rubber smelly person that entered Visby and got some Thai food. Maria got to much sun and had to chill her face.

Later the shooting day, Tuesday, I guided the ladies through the Visby nightlife and the day after I left them in the hands of my friends since I had to fly to Stockholm for a meeting. I know, it was not very gentleman like, but one has to work.

I flew back to Gotland on Thursday with a bunch of friends. Later that day, when flying back the crew, Victoria fell asleep in the plane so I had to fly for half an hour with only one hand. The other was used to hold up Victoria's sleepy head. That is gentleman like. :-) When she woke up she got to try the controls. She did pretty good but was very nervous. Yup, when flying over water one has to wear a life west. Victorias make-up is just a test for Maria. She does not normally carry that much make-up. :-)

The unedited Studio Paus shots

I often get the comment: "You must shoot a lot of frames!" Well, in fact I do not. I do not just fire away and hope for the best - I rig the picture and shoot only when things look good through the viewfinder. This is an inheritance from the day I shot with expensive film and only got 10 frames per film. My theory is that pressing the release button is a trigger for the brain. If you want to teach the brain to quickly react to when things look good, something that can be vital when shooting people and situations, you have to give the brain positive feedback. See the release button as a dog clicker. Only shoot when you really see it looks good. Yup, in the beginning it can take a really long time between shots but after a while your brain, eyes and release finger get in sync.

For Terese 's image I shot 50 frames including 12 test shots, and for Victoria's image I shot 55+17+24 = 96 frames for three different dressings (nude, big towel, small towel). This is a lot of frames for me. Most of my pictures you see on on morre.se is shot with 10-20 frames plus 3-5 Polaroids.

Shooting outdoors

The make-up was done in our hotel (the base) and the rest added at the car but. Left to do on location was for Terese get her hair fixed and then to sit on a towel in the sun for an hours. Hard job. :-)

Victoria got the old baby oil treatment. The best baby oil is Barnängen's since it is absorbed just right by the skin.
Here are some another tips for the aspiring photographer or model who wants to look perfect:
*Always remove any tight clothes at least 30 minutes before the shoot if you are planning a nude shoot. That is needed for the skin to loose the marks from the underwear, bra, socks etc.
*Always use a bathrobe when the model is not in front of the camera. The skin gets cold very quickly and before the models notice it, leaving hard to edit colorization of the skin. And you guessed it, the bathrobe is also good for not having nude models wandering around to lose skin marks...

In a bright, high exposure range like this outdoor shoot, the Hasselblad really shines. It picks up the dark shadows between the stones and still gets the real color of the sky! Just aim and expose correctly and you are done. Well... picking the right lens, posture, shooting direction etc etc is also vital. Sometimes I wonder how it is possible to get all things right.
For example this time after Terese shoot I noticed I incorrectly had put the autofocus on Continuous! The Hasselblad has only one focusing point and that is in the middle. So when using the auto focus you sometimes focus first and then compose the picture, having to move the focus spot to a area closer or further away from where you want to keep the focus. You keep the by pressing the shutter button halfway. But that does not work on continuous! So I was horrified to notice this after finishing that hour of shooting, where most of the part was endless sky. Thankfully the tree caught the auto focus in most of my shots. I was scared as h*ll before I had checked my shots in the camera LCD.

Ar, the location = carry stuff

When being on Gotland last year shooting for my now slow Morre's UK Babes project I had spotted some nice locations. One was at the Northern part of Gotland at Ar where a very small, inhabited, island resided connected to the main island only with a small (almost) land tounge.

When there, I immediately knew we picked the right location, when I saw the wind blown tree on the island! I do not know how, but it just feels right. I do not really pick the location - the location pick us.

So then is the fun part - carry kilos of equipment out on a far off location and through water. Hiking boots is a good pick and the abilty to stand wet socks for hours.... Sometimes I really miss my assistant.

Getting to Gotland and a sweet ride

The lucky models to join for Gotland was Terese A and Victoria N, chosen in collaboration with Johanna from Studio Paus. Amazingly both models and the make up artist Maria L, got to Linköping on time. On Tuesday we pack us all in with a lot of gear in a small airplane and I flew us to Visby. I would have taken 6 hours by car and ferry, but it only takes 1 hour by private plane.

When landing the first priority was to get a car big enough for a fat photographer, his models and gear. I called some of the people I got to know when working there with Gotland Ring. And guess what? Ove at the furniture shop EM, is just the best! He borrowed us a Hästen designed Mercedes and even picked us up at the airport! Hats off for Ove!

Being a models is hard. Sometimes you have to wait for hours. Sometimes you have to order the right food in bright sunlight in Visby's best beach club, Kallis.

The car has been standing since the winter so I had to get a workshop to change from winter tires, and there I cleaned it up. It was not the most luxurious ride, but it was cool! The downside was while driving, it smelled like burnt rubber inside. When driving to our location we where pretty scared it would caught fire but we where totally shocked when the back window exploded at 90 km/h!!

When picking up the car I had noticed it had been a bit loose at the upper rim but did not think it mattered. What probably happed, was that the wind caught the upper side, creating tension in the hardened glass, making it explode into pieces.

Spa models wanted for Gotland 15-17 July

One of my friends girlfriend has a beauty salon in Stockholm (Studio Paus), and I always wanted to make some new versions of spa/health pictures so I gladly signed up for a free shoot. (I will get massage though...)
It is not free for them, since the pay for two female models to be flown with me and a make-up artist and hairstylist to Gotland, Visby and they pay for the stay too. This is during the hottest, craziest, most party week in Visby, Tuesday 15:th to Thursday 17:th in w.29.

I need two female models, 173-180 cm, (B) C (D) cup, fit (it is health pictures!), good hair and skin, and preferably long legs and a classy, posh, fresh look.

Here you can see the picture style: http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/get-tan.html

As usual show you interest in this assignment at: http://morre.se/models/apply/

Models wanted 28th of June in Oslo

It is time for the team to have some fun and get some nice shots too.

I was invited via Facebook to an event in Oslo, a city I love, and just for fun I asked if the event manager needed an extra photographer.

Well, what the heck, the whole thing sound fun and I do have some spare time at weekends this summer to have some own projects and why not find the best of the best of Norway? :-)

I need 4 great female (dudes love to misunderstand this) bikini models for the Beachparty Fotoshoot in Oslo Saturday the 28th of June, 12.00-19.00 something.

I will bring my full gear, my assistant and one combined make-up and hair stylist, all packed into a private plane. It takes about 1:40 h Linköping-Oslo and we will try to be at the event about 11.oo at least.

If the weather is non-flyable we will have to cancel our part, since we do not have the time to get to Oslo by car.

Since this is an exclusive, no retreat–no surrender shoot we only have time to shoot 4 models, and since I attend to use these pictures in my portfolio I will pick the ones I think gives me the best shots. Are you one of those?

Apply at:

http://www.morre.se/models/apply/

If you have applied for any other shoot earlier, just email us and tell us that you are interested.

Oh! And we will join the party at Stereo afterwards. :-)

Unedited shots from the practise/portfolio shoot

So this is the almost-end result from the shoot set up for testing some light gear and a new make-up and hair stylist.

The shots are totally unedited - just exported straight from Lightroom on my laptop. This computer does not have a calibrated screen so my next step will be to check the colors and lightness on my stationary computer and take away some skin spots that made it through the make-up.
But on these pictures you will be able to tell what model who had a stressful life before the shoot. ;-)

The portfolio shoot - 3 (3)

When finishing Sara's green shot, the clock had passed 18.00. One thing missed by a lot of people is the fact that good pictures take time! I usually shoot very few shots per setting, but just putting everything up, fixing the light, finding the pose, adjusting the clothes with clamps, correcting the hair and getting the model into the right mood take time.

Hungry but happy after some sweet shots, we headed for Jonas' parents 25 minutes away to fill up our stomach and get the last shot - a beach shot of Maria.

Yup, the ladies love these behind the scenes shots. :-) The photographer on his bare knees on a leash in front of lady Dominance.

Consider the fact of slipping and dropping the Hasselblad H3D-31 into the water... It is a hard and nervous job as a photographer.

We got home 3 minutes before the supermarket closed at 22.00 and I ran in barefoot to buy a steak for dinner.
So the last bit was unpacking the bus, serving champagne for the ladies and cooking mashed potatoes, wine and cream gravy and oven grilled lamb. The original plan was to hit town but everyone was totally exhausted, so we stay at home giggling over the behind the scenes shots.