Ghostbuster's gear: the results

Staying at a three star hotel is not the best location you can get, but what the heck—the shoot was all about testing a new lighting gear and having some beers with friends.
The biggest problem with the rig was getting the light stand to not tilt from side to side in the backpack. When doing you could not move around without being sh*t scared of dropping the beauty dish or getting the light in the right directions. Some assistant from my friends and some silver tape took care of the problem, but I will modify the newly bought backpack so the small light stand I used will not be able to move at all sideways.

The second problem was moving around. You feel like an unbalanced ghost buster moving around with that thing on your back and over your head, and you can easily bump into signs and doorways.
But as soon as you are outside it works ! Even so, I found it better to be alone and not using any B light, since having having to instruct an assistant was cumbersome. With the Ghostbuster gear you have enough to do just handle your own dish and camera at the same time. The light was good though, but I guess two assistants is better for a main-n-B-light shoot.


But I found the way of using it once we started playing around with it in front of the hotel. Since the crowd filling Elmia Motor Show was this weekend, we had a bit of an audience since many of the stay at the same hotel.
Just to give the audience the show they came for a started shouting instructions "as seen on TV" to Angelica and Jenny:
-Work the camera, bitch!
-Yeah! You look sexy! More like that!
-Show me your f*cking tits!
and similar could be heard miles away... :-)

Well, here is the unedited shots from the beer session. More pictures on Facebook.

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.

The portfolio shoot - 2 (3)

After the tree and oil sessions we once again hit the road, this time I wanted to find a place with some nice leaves. After about 30 minutes we passed timber logs and that just made me stop. Sure enough, just some meters away, there were a nice, green place to shoot.

The portfolio shoot - 1 (3)

This shoot was just for ourselves.
I initiated this shoot since I found myself having a free weekend and I wanted to test some new lightning gear. Also, Emmelie need some new portfolio pictures and I need to find more make-up artists and hairs stylists to work with around Sweden and the Nordic countries.

Having this kind of a shoot means less stress. So we took our time discussing the make-up and giving feedback to our new, eager to learn, trainee Maria. She proved to have the right mentality and is fun work with!

Less stress means more time though. When about to finish the make-up and hair session, it was almost 12.00 . So once again I had to get in the cooking suit and prepare lunch among the six other persons in my kitchen, while Jonas packed up the minibus.

Departure! Wave goodbye to Emmelie and head for the hills, the five of us and a iPod stereo.

Locations. For me that is a place that feels right to me. I normally react to a place when passing it. So we drove towards the area around Åtvidaberg where I have been before and has great nature. The shot with the model on the white ensilage on morre.se is shot in that area.

Well, as usual the shoot consisted of crawling around, setting up lights, making tape bras, oiling up models, keeping models warm with dressing gown, carrying their bags, choosing clothes, giving instruction, working on top of rabbit dropping etc.