Symbolism: Slaying Raptors, Gods, and Our Most Cherished Delusions

 

Raptor Slayer

You may have noticed that there are a lot of symbols in my pictures. I also tend to stick with certain themes, though I do make the occasional deviation.

Let's have a look at two recent storyboards, and decode some of the symbols in them. We'll start with Raptor Slayer above.

At first glance, what you see is probable something like nude woman stabbing over-sized parrot with teeth. That is certainly one way to look at it, but there is a little bit more to it:

I see a woman mastering her fear, and despite her vulnerability, that's the nudity, fighting very hard to accomplish the almost impossible, i.e. killing a raptor with a bone knife.

I find that never-give-up-even-in-the-face-of-great-difficulty attitude both admirable and attractive, so yes, the nudity makes symbolic double duty.

Of course, as an observer, you will have your own way of interpreting the picture, based on your values, your experience, your knowledge of the Lost World genre of literature, movies, and art, your social context (i.e. the opinions of your friends, and other people who influence you).

Nubian Queen I: The Death of Sobek

The Death of Sobek is about the importance of critically evaluating our own beliefs, and, when those beliefs do not hold up to scrutiny, killing them off and replacing them with something new and better.

Unexamined beliefs, beliefs that are unsubstantiated by evidence, and who do not hold up to even cursory scrutiny, tend to rule our lives.

For example, you might believe that the best way to boost the economy, is cutting taxes for the rich, so they can invest more, and thus create more and better jobs. Well, according to research on tax cuts in 18 OECD countries, that is not how it works. All that happens when you lower taxes for the rich, is that they get richer:

“Our findings on the effects of growth and unemployment provide evidence against supply side theories that suggest lower taxes on the rich will induce labour supply responses from high-income individuals (more hours of work, more effort etc.) that boost economic activity. They are, in fact, more in line with recent empirical research showing that income tax holidays and windfall gains do not lead individuals to significantly alter the amount they work.”
-The Economic Consequences of Major Tax Cuts for the Rich, by David Hope, Julian Limberg

Feel free to disagree, but if you do, bring research that support your views.

The supply side economics scam has kept political parties alive, and sometimes in power, for decades, to the detriment of all of us, except the very rich people who benefit from the tax cuts.

There are plenty of other common beliefs that do not stand up to scrutiny:

For example the idea that a company can maximize its profits by having everyone work as much as possible all the time. This is an idea from Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management. The problem with it, is that if everyone works at full capacity all the time, you get enormous queues of unfinished material, so-called Work In Process (WIP), in your processes. In extreme cases, you get so much WIP, that nothing ever gets finished. This sometimes happens in software development, but it can, and does, happen in other areas too.

There are plenty of ways to reduce, or eliminate, the problem. In management, you can use Lean, Theory of Constraints, agile software development methods, the Deming Knowledge System, IOHAI, and other methods.

Most companies who implement these methods and frameworks do so, not because they understand how they can help alleviate the problems, but because it has become a fad. When you do that, you will almost certainly do things that short-circuit the new way of doing things, so that you go through the motions, but never get the benefits.

For example, agile methods, mentioned above, rely on something called vertical slicing to create work packages that can be implemented with an optimal balance between capacity cost and queueing cost. Over the past 20 years, nearly every company I have seen, has fallen into the trap of doing horizontal slicing, i.e. requirements are functional, rather than representations of something that has economic value on its own.

As a result, lead times can explode. I have seen lead times go up by a factor of 50, and more, because of this. That means you would have to wait for two years to get something that could be built and delivered in two weeks. Thus, you loose the money you could have made by using that functionality for two years.

Another favourite: You want to implement one of the methods mentioned above, and realize you need new processes, so you decide to invest in a tool for creating the new processes. Looking around for a good, safe, alternative, you decide to go with something like IBM Blueworks. Nobody gets blamed for buying from IBM!

What you do not realize, is that all of these new methods and frameworks, separate process material flow from the flow of directives, and that the flow of directives go in the opposite direction from the material flow. The reason for this, is that it is much easier to reduce the amount of WIP, and thus queueing costs, that way.

Blueworks does not allow you to design processes like that. It does not separate material flow from flow of directives. Topping it off, the economic simulation in Blueworks takes only capacity cost into account, which means you are liable to design processes with sky-high queueing costs.

Suddenly, your unexamined beliefs about tax cuts, how to write requirements, or which tool to use, has become your Sobek, your crocodile god demanding human sacrifice.

It's not just about whether you can slay it, you probably do not even know that you should, and you live in a society of Sobek worshipers that will punish you if you try.

I bet you did not think of Nubian Queen I: The Death of Sobek in those terms. Symbolism is tricky, and symbols can be open to an infinite variety of interpretations.

Because of this, the symbolism in a picture is liable to misfire if we do not talk about what it represents. Often, a picture is just a cool image, without deeper connotations, but we won't know that either, unless we talk, or write, about the picture.

So, lets talk about the pictures we see, and the pictures we create. Otherwise, their meaning can all too easily get lost.

Be seeing you!

Öland Nudes III: Eve

Öland isn't the Garden of Eden, but it is a beautiful island. The landscape is to a large extent open grassland. Here and there you will find small forests of windblown trees.

Eve started out as a jungle theme picture, but I changed my mind early on. I wanted to connect the picture to one of my ongoing series, so it was either adding spiders and turn it into an Arachnophobia picture, or change the setting to Öland, and make it a part of the Öland Nudes series. I chose the latter.

Sometimes I wonder if you have to be lonely to do any kind of artistic work. I wrote my first book in 2008-2010, during a period when I felt very lonely.

Since then, I have found that I am more productive during periods of loneliness and sadness. When life takes a turn for the better, the urge to create does not disappear, but it is muted. Perhaps because I feel I may have a future, may not just survive, but live and be happy, after all.

I started a new job a week ago, and I feel pretty good about it. I'll be busy working, something I really look forward to.

That leaves less time for photography, and all the weird stuff I do to create my pictures. I probably won't have time to write another book either, at least not for some time.

The one project I want to return to and focus on this year, is Alice: Demon's Gate. We'll see if I can manage a full time job, and work on a graphic novel at the same time.

Pictorialism vs. Neo-Pictorialism vs. Contemporary Pictorialism

Bareback Riders - Pictorialist Version

In this article I will use the same basic photo to create three very different pictures, a pictorialist version, a neo-pictorialist version, and, for want of a better term, a contemporary pictorialist version.

Hang on! You are in for a ride!

The slow bit: A brief history of pictorialism

 Pictorialism is a photographic style that was popular from 1885 to about 1920. The style all but disappeared for a long time, but it was rediscovered in the 90's.

The rising interest in the original pictorialists and their pictures, also kindled an interest in recreating their style. Behold, neo-pictorialism was born!

Neo-pictorialist pictures are stylistically very similar to pictorialist pictures, but there are important differences. If there weren't, this article would end here.

What about contemporary pictorialism? First of all, I invented the term. There are people today, who do what the pictorialists did a hundred years ago. Because there is a 100 year gulf separating the original pictorialists from the contemporary ones, the technology has changed, our society, and social norms, have changed. Therefore, a contemporary pictorialist picture can look very different from a pictorialist picture from 1918.

Enough with the history lession! Let's get on with creating the pictures!

The boring base photograph

Base Photo: Bushes and Borgholm Castle

The base photograph is a picture of some boring shrubs. You can see the Borgholm Castle in the background, but as castle photos go, this one is pretty much a dud. The castle is very interesting, but you cannot see that in this picture.

Let's take this unremarkable photo, and have some fun with it!

Neo-pictorialist version

Bareback Riders: Neo-Pictorialist Version. Note the absence of horses and riders.

Let's begin by giving the picture the neo-pictorialist treatment. When people talk about creating pictorialist pictures today, they usually mean neo-pictorialist pictures.

Neo-pictorialism is mostly a technical exercise. The objective is to make a picture stylistically similar to an old pictorialist picture. The closer you get, the more you have succeeded.

Pictorialists in the early 20th century wanted to evoke emotion. They wanted to create art. To do that, they turned to painters for inspiration. Consequently, they often wanted their pictures to look like paintings.

To create painterly effects, the pictorialists used a great variety of tricks. Anything that worked was okay to use. They often blurred their pictures, they hand-colored them, dodged, burned, used early composition techniques...

Neo-pictorialists recreate the look of the pictorialist photos, much like historical reenactment societies recreate old battles.

Thus, if we take our base photo, and make it look stylistically like a pictorialist photo, then we have a neo-pictorialist photo.

Why are there no horse and riders in our neo-pictorialist version of the photo? Because there is no reason to have them there. Only the style is important. The content does not matter, as long as it does not look too modern. Consequently, neo-pictorialist pictures are often pictures of nature, landscapes, forests. A really old car is okay to shoot, but a modern car is not. To some neo-pictorialists, shooting with old lenses and using the original processes is a matter of pride.

Pictorialist version

Bareback Riders: Pictorialist Version

In the pictorialist (1920) version of the photo, the style is exactly the same as in the neo-pictorialist version, but the content is different. Why?

Because, to a pictorialist, content was important. Pictorialists asked questions like:

Is it beautiful?
Is it scary?
Does it tell a story?
Does it convey an idea?
...and so on

A pictorialist uses whatever means available to further the purpose of the picture. It is that simple.

They did not care about using the "correct" process, or whether the picture conformed to genre conventions. They used whatever means they had. The style is as much a result of technical limitations, as of aesthetic considerations.

For this picture, I have stuck with the convention of making the photo look like a painting, but the technique I use for doing so is completely modern. In case you are curious, I used Dynamic Auto-Painter, a tool that analyses the photo, and with a little guidance from me, recreates it from scratch, as a painting.

Making their pictures look like paintings was a means to an end, not an end in itself. It was a convenient way to help viewers relate to the photos by relating the photos to something the audience already knew. (A bit like when the iPhone was introduced. The iPhone is a miniature mobile multi-purpose device. Most of the time it is used, it is used as something other than a phone. Calling it a phone made it easier for people to relate to it.)

Nudes are common in pictorialism because the nude human form evokes feelings. Most pictures are of nude women, because most of the photographers were male. There are exceptions though. There were female photographers, and photos of nude males.

Note the difference between pictorialist and neo-pictorialist:

• The pictorialist uses cutting edge technology and processes to express emotion and ideas.
• The neo-pictorialist tries to emulate the results of processes used by pictorialists in the period 1885-1920.

What would a pictorialists do today? I am glad you asked.

Contemporary Pictorialism

Bareback Riders: Contemporary Pictorialism

A contemporary pictorialist would ask the same, or similar, questions that a pictorialist would:

Is it beautiful?
Is it scary?
Does it tell a story?
Does it convey an idea?
Do I have to ask exactly the same questions a pictorialist would have asked 100 years ago? (Hint: The answer is NO!)


If you have read my blog posts about the Gothenburg Nudes series, you know that the basic idea was to separate nudity and objectification, for the purpose of making room for appreciation.

This basic idea guided the design of each picture, and of the series as a whole. The Öland Nudes series uses the same basic idea, but it is tailored for a slightly different audience.

People tend to relate to places they know, so I use familiar locations to trigger interest, before I hit t
hem with abstract concepts.

I admit, it does not work perfectly. Some people see nipples, and after that, they see nothing else. This happens both with those who like nipples, and those who don't. Neither group is my target audience.

My target audience is the group of people who appreciates both the beauty of the human form, and abstract reasoning...and especially those who either live in Gothenburg or on Öland.

If you live elsewhere, please do not feel left out. You can appreciate Gothenburg and Öland even if you do not live there.

That is the difference between pictorialism, neo-pictorialism, and contemporary pictorialism as I see it. Feel free to disagree. If you do, please also feel free to comment. I am interested in your opinion, whether your argument changes my mind or not.

An Afternoon in Pal-Ul-Don (Aspect Ratios, Stephen Spielberg, and Facebook Click Optimization)

Pal-Ul-Don is a Lost World from Tarzan the Terrible a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This scene is not from the book, but loosely inspired by it.

My pictures are inspired by what I read, the movies I see, comics, conversations I have with other people, and of course my own experiences.

Technically, a picture like this is much easier to create than you think. I am a photographer (well, when I am not a systems thinker that help organizations improve their processes and their organizations). When I create a picture like this, I think like a photographer, and to a large extent, work like a photographer.

For example, you may have noticed that this picture has a slightly different aspect ratio from what you are used to. That is because it is 1.85:1, which happens to be the aspect ratio Steven Spielberg chose for Jurassic Park.

Why did he do that? Movies are usually shot in a 2.4:1 aspect ratio, making the pictures very wide. his is great for a lot of things, but it gets cramped for a dinosaur that is very high.

The picture above compares the 1:85 aspect ratio Stephen Spielberg chose for Jurassic Park with the 2:3 ratio common in photography, and the 2.4:1 ratio of most movies.

If you want a T-Rex to look good, go with 1:85!

...except, of course, when something else works better. The Jurassic Park movies have been shot in a variety of different aspect ratios. Jurassic World was shot in a non-standard aspect ratio, 2:1.

If you are working in 3D, don't forget that you may need to adjust the focal length of your camera to get good results. Daz Studio uses 65mm lenses by default. For An Afternoon in Pal-Ul-Don I used a 50mm lens. Jurassic World used mostly 30mm and 60mm.

A bit of trial and error works wonders here. I decided what I wanted in frame first, then set the aspect ratio, and adjusted focal length and camera position until I was happy.

Speaking of happy...

If you value likes on Facebook more than you value creating a good picture, you might want to use the photography portrait aspect ratio, 3:2.

Because Facebook uses a narrow column for posts, using portrait format maximizes screen space.

To really see and experience the impact of a landscape format picture on Facebook, it is necessary to enlarge it by clicking on on it. Most people won't do that, even if you have created a great picture.

Instead, to maximize likes, you will either have to butcher your image and crop it down to portrait format, or design your picture for portrait format from the start.

With 3D, you can create a set of cameras using different aspect ratios, and use them to create different versions of the same scene.

Me, I am bull-headed and tend to go with the aspect ratio I like best on a picture by picture basis, even if it means the pictures won't get as popular on Facebook.

Something wicked - Comic pre-production agony

Horror from Above – Petra Brewitz looks up, and something wicked looks back.

When I wrote the manuscript to A Rift in Time, the time-travel action adventure comic, I planted a few seeds for new stories.

Petra Brewitz, Petri Olderhvit, Julia Reinhart and I have started kicking ideas around for a sequel. That means we are in the oh so agonizing pre-production stage, the pre-idea stage really, when we try to come up with new ideas, and connect them to each other, and with some old ideas, without making a total mess of it.

Comic version of Horror from Above. We want a look similar to the first Rift adventure, but with a slightly more realistic look.

A project like this starts out pretty messy, and that is perfectly okay. Actually, it is a prerequisite for making something really good. The trick is to have the right kind of mess, and to narrow it down to a logical structure in the end.

Something Wicked.

What you will see in the final comic may, or may not, resemble what you see in these prestudy sketches.

When we will be done? I have no idea. We are doing this for fun, in our spare time, so it will have to take a back seat to just about anything that pays the bills.

In addition, we are deliberately planning to make things difficult for us again, setting goals way beyond what is reasonable. Creates headaches, but also makes for a wonderful learning experience.

Save the freedom of photography!

A photo like this will become illegal on July 9th, 2015, if if the EU parliaments votes yes to a proposal for an ill-considered new law.

On the 9th of July 2015, the EU parliament will vote on whether to restrict the freedom to take photographs in public spaces. If the proposal goes through, it will be harmful to everyone who enjoys taking a photo, whether it be vacation photos, or street photography, whether it is amateur or professional photography.

The consequences, if the new law is adopted and enforced, can be devastating not just to photographers, but it can harm democracy by restricting news reporting. According to Farida Shaheed, UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, the new proposal poses a danger to human rights.

In this article, I will go into details about the consequences of the proposal for a new law, but first things first: There is a protest movement fighting the proposal by gathering signatures for a petition. 

Click here to sign the petition to protect the freedom of photography!

The EU parliament vote is on the 9th of July, only a few days from now, so if you need to be quick if you want to help protect the right to take photographs.

The proposal explained: A Good Thing Gone Bad

It started out as a good thing that went bad: The EU member countries currently have copyright laws that are confusing, obsolete, and different from country to country. The copyright laws were written a long time ago, long before the Internet, and also long before the European Union. Some of it dates as far back as 300 years ago.

The EU parliament has been aware that copyright reform is sorely needed for a long time, but little has been done, until recently. Julia Reda, a member of the German Pirate party, was appointed to write a report on how to unify copyright laws across the European Union.

The original report by Julia Reda is pretty good. You can read a summary here. Basically, Reda wants to strengthen creator rights, while at the same time ensuring that public works are free.

The problem was that over 550 amendments were added to Reda's original report, and some of these were not good. One in particular stood out as exceptionally bad. Despite this, the EU parliament voted to add the amendment to the report.

The amendment causing all the trouble was written by French MEP Jean-Marie Caveda. Caveda's amendment, according to Caveda himself (English translation by Google), directly targets Facebook and Wikipedia, whom he considers to be American monopolies, with highly undesirable business models.

Be that as it may be with Facebook, but Wikipedia? Wikipedia is a non-profit organisation that produces and develops a free dictionary, and a library of public domain images and videos. The material is contributed by volonteer authors, photographers, and videographers from all over the world. The Wiki software that drives the Wikipedia web sites is in the public domain, and free to download and use.

Why on Earth target Wikipedia? And, Caveda's amendment does not really target Facebook, it targets Facebook users, like you and me.

Reda's original report wanted to extend panorama freedom, the right to take photos in public places, and publish them, to the entire EU. Many EU countries, like Sweden, where I live, already has panorama freedom. Other countries, like France, does not. For example, in France it is illegal to take a photo of the Eiffel tower at night, because the way the tower is lit, is copyrighted.

Caveda's amendment changes that. According to his amendment, if your photograph contains a copyrighted public building, or a public work of art, you are responsible for locating the copyright holders, which may be an architect, artist, or some other entity, ask the copyright owner for permission to publish your photo, and also pay a royalty. If you get permission to use your photo at all, that is…

Caveda's proposal covers commercial use, and that is where it gets sticky. As it turns out, the photos you take are likely to be commercial, even if you do not know it, and never get paid for them.

That is just for starters. It gets worse. A lot worse!

Let's have a look at some of the things that can happen if Caveda's amendment becomes law on Thursday 9th of July 2015. 

I am going to paint a pretty harsh picture. Exaggerated? I hope so, but I fear it is not. As far as I can tell, this is pretty accurate, according to the existing proposal.

The Facebook FUBAR

If you use Facebook, G+, Instagram, Twitter, or some other social media, you have signed an end user agreement. I'll write specifically about the Facebook end user agreement, but other social media sites have similar ones.

According to the agreement you have signed with Facebook, the photos and videos you upload can be used by Facebook for commercial purposes, without remunerating you, or telling you about it. Thus, anything you upload is, by definition, commercial.

The end user agreement also states that you are responsible for making sure that if you upload anything, you have the right to do so. If you do not have the rights to the photo or video, you are legally responsible, and obligated to pay any costs incurred.

Thus, on July 9th, many millions of Facebook users may become criminals, and legally responsible to pay damages for anything they upload. Depending on the interpretation of the law, they may also be liable to pay damages for anything they have already uploaded, ever.

Forget about uploading vacation photos, street photos, shots of your friends in or near a building.

That is truly a major FUBAR.

The Death of Photojournalism

I am a photographer and a freelance journalist. On Thursday the 9th of July, much of the work I do for a living becomes illegal, if Caveda's amendment becomes law. Many other professional photographers and journalists are in the same situation.

For example, if I cover a demonstration in Gothenburg, where I live, I can't photograph or film it, if there are buildings, or public works of art, that are in my field of view.

I can still take close-ups with a short depth-of-field, but there is no way I can show the scope of a demonstration by taking a wide angle shot.

Nor would I be able to cover things like sports events, because the arena is likely to be copyright protected. I can't cover the Gothenburg Marathon, because it takes place in the city streets, and some shots really require using a wide angle lens.

The magazines I work for have a lot of photos of buildings. Some of them cover nothing but building projects. They would be caught in an impossible situation.

This is a bizarre consequence not anticipated by Caveda, but if his amendment becomes law, it is what happens.

The Map Mishap

Can you imagine what would happen to map services like Google Maps and Apple Maps? They have satellite views with photos of every building and every publicly displayed work of art in the world.

Google, Apple, and the map service providers would have to locate the copyright holders for all those public works, and ask them, individually, for permission to use the satellite photos. And, they would have to pay enormous copyright fees, and create a ridiculous administrative apparatus to do the work.

For the end user, you and me, it probably means we would end up paying for it.

More likely, satellite views will be removed altogether.

The Movie Mortuary

Shooting a movie in the EU could get ridiculously difficult and expensive. Film makers, from small, independent, documentary film makers, to large studios, would suddenly be faced with the daunting task of identifying the copyright holder of every building caught on film or video tape, asking for permission to use it, and paying copyright fees.

If I was a film maker, I'd just make my movies somewhere else.

By the way, according to Julia Reda, there is a risk that the new law will be applied retroactively, to every movie, or photo, taken in the past 70 years, so, even if film makers move their business elsewhere, they may still become criminals retroactively.

If that happens, you need to carefully review all the photos and videos you have ever uploaded to social media, or you will become a retroactive criminal too.

Dumping Democracy

Well informed, engaged citizens are a cornerstone of democracy. If it becomes difficult or impossible to cover important events because they take place in public spaces, democracy will suffer.

Even if the law is not applied rigorously, there is a risk that it can be abused for political purposes. For example, a political group could use it to block media coverage of the activities of other groups.

The long term effects are difficult to predict, but we already have a trend towards increased control, reduced democracy, and a drift towards oligarchy.

At the very least, the effects of Caveda's amendment should be thoroughly evaluated, before it is voted on!

To the best of my knowledge, this has not happened.

The Human Rights Hiccup

We should always keep in mind that copyright regimes may under-protect authors, contrary to what is usually assumed or expected. This is because “subsequent right-holders” (e.g. producers, publishers, distributors etc.) typically exercise more influence over law-making than individual creators, and may have divergent and possibly opposing interests to those of the creators.

– Farida Shaheed, UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights

According to Farida Shaheed, UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, the panorama freedom is important to human rights. Farida argues that both human rights, and creativity, are to some extent dependent on restricting copyright.

She also, quite rightly, argues that strengthening copyright does not necessarily benefit the creators. Instead, it tends to benefit subsequent right-holders, companies that buy the rights cheaply from creators, and then use their power as intermediaries to make a lot of money for themselves, while passing very little to the original creators.

Copyright exceptions and limitations are tools that can – and therefore should – be used to ensure that States abide by their obligations in the field of human rights, in particular the right to freedom of expression, including artistic expression, and the right to take part in cultural life.


– Farida Shaheed, UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights

Farida also argues that copyright exceptions and limitations are important tools for strengthening human rights. This is a good point. If you cannot publish a photo, or a video, or quote a legal document, you may not even be able to discuss a human rights issue.

When considering Julia Reda's report, the Legal Affairs Committee chose to ignore the opinions of the UN special rapporteur. That is, I believe, a bit worrying all by itself.

Take a stand!

I would ask you to take a stand. Do not uncritically go by my opinion. Check for yourself. There is plenty of public material.

Both Julia Reda and Jean-Marie Cavada have blogged about their respective opinions. Cavada's blog is in French, but you can use Google Translate to obtain an English version.

If you decide that the panorama right is worth protecting, sign the petition!

You can also write directly to members of the European Parliament. Wikipedia has a web page that will help you get in contact with the right members.

A third way to show support, is to spread the information as much as you can. Plenty of people and organisations have written about this. If you search social media, like twitter, look for the hashtag #FoP.

The Lost World: George Makes a Split

This is as gruesome as we are going to get in the Lost World project. Grisly enough, I think. We have shot most of the material, but still have a lot of post processing to do.

Right now, I am very glad we decided to do the project in a comic book style. Photorealism would have been going just one step to far...

You might wonder just how we create an image like this. We are eight people in the project, and no one can draw worth a damn (unless they are keeping it a secret).

The process started in Comic Life 3, where I wrote a first draft of the script, and made a dummy layout with empty panels.

This makes it easy for the entire team to see what we are working on, and how it fits with the bits we have done, and all the stuff we haven't done yet.

The script and dummy layout is also a great help when the team discusses story ideas and improvements.

We always have a printed copy of the dummy layout when we are out shooting.

When we have done a shoot, we add photos to key panels as quickly as possible. This helps us track what we have done. It also gives us a sense of the look and feel of the whole thing.

We do most of the compositing in Pixelmator. As you can see, the composites are not photo realistic. They are not supposed to be either, since this is just an intermediary stage, before we import the photos into Comic Life 3 and apply the final drawing conversion there.

Working this way is a great timesaver. Photorealism takes time. Using a comic book style allows us to work much faster, and still create very exciting and interesting images.

Also, when we get to the goriest parts, like this photo of George and the T-Rexes, turning the photo into a drawing reduces the emotional impact a bit. We want to tell an exciting action story, not revel in blood and gore.

See you!

Once more: The power of repetition

If you are a passionate photographer, you will sooner or later find that you start obsessively repeating some part of what you do, over, and over again. This is natural. It is part of the learning process, at least, it is when you try to really grok something.

At the moment, I have at least two obsessive-compulsive loops in my head. One is about understanding lines, and finding the essential elements that make an image interesting.

The result is my Whiteout series: I have taken to deliberately overexpose by about a single stop, then use an in camera grainy, high contrast B&W filter to create photos with harsh black and white, and most of the details washed away.

Repetition is the key to learning, and repeat I do. Time will tell what, and if, I learn.

When I started the Whiteout series, I was convinced nobody but me would be interested in it. As it turns out, that was wrong. The photos are much more popular than I thought they would be. Perhaps it is because of their simplicitly. They are restful, have clearly defined points-of-interest, and the drama is in the contrast, not the imagery.

The other loop that goes around in my head is different.

I am trying to build a Deep One, a monster from horror author H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. The photos above are all training for Horror Noir a photo project I am working on with some friends.

With the Whiteout series I do not have to do much studying. It is mostly about practicing things I already know in theory.

The Horror Noir project is different. I have set up Pinterest boards to study Film Noir & Horror, how to build creatures, how to use Pixelmator, Lovecraftian monsters, comic book drawing and design, and how to use the 3D software Blender.

In addition to that, I study:

• Painting with Light, by John Alton: A classic book about Film Noir style lighting and filming.
• Sketching Light, The Moment it Clicks, and The Hot Shoe Diaries, are all by Joe McNally
• How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, by Stan Lee and John Buscema, because, we are working on a photo comic, so the more I know...
• The Insiders Guide to Creating Comics and Graphic Novels, by Andy Schmidt, because, did I mention we are making a photo comic...

And that is just the beginning. I read, shoot, and practice with Pixelmator, because the better we do it, the more fun it will be.

You never really finish conceptual spirals like these. Instead, for every new loop, they mutate, split, or join with other spirals, becoming something new and fresh, and different, interesting, that must be explored...

Though I sometimes reach plateaus, or even regress, if I keep pushing, it'll be worth it, not for the goal, but for the journey itself.

Two days with the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM super wide angle zoom lens

Test subject one: My son playing Club Penguin. He is not sad, just focused on the game, and a little bit annoyed with me removing framed photos from the wall, clearing off the table, and moving the computer to get just the right angle. The wide angle lens distorts perspective, creating the illusion of an enormous computer and a rather small boy.

 I bought a Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 lens recently, and decided to spend a a couple of days getting acquainted with it. It turned put to be quite an adventure. I learned quite a bit. The very first thing I learned:

Do not wear a hat while shooting with a super wide angle lens!

If you wear a hat while taking a shot like this, your hat will fall off.

Working with a 10mm lens is a lot different from working with a 30mm or longer lens. With a longer lens, you usually want straight lines to be straight. With a super wide angle, the whole point is to have a lens that can distort perspective. To do this, you will need to tilt the camera up or down while shooting. If you tilt the camera up, for example while shooting a tall building, your hat will fall off!

Extreme angles – high or low, and strong leading lines are important when using a super wide angle lens.

The first day I did not really have time to do much testing. Work and playing with my son had priority.

The day after, I decided to take a long photo walk, and put the lens to the test.

High angle, with a slight downwards tilt – you can make even dull, ordinary things look interesting by distorting the perspective. I got the shot by putting the camera on a monopod and raising it as high as I could.

My first stop was at the Gardening Association in Gothenburg. No flowers to shoot there this time of year, but there are other things, like this lift.

When I bought the lens, I also bought an important accessory: A monopod!

Why on Earth would I want a monopod for a wide angle lens? Aren't monopods for tele lenses? Well, yes, but I did not buy the monopod to reduce camera shake. I bought it to extend my reach, so I can shoot from interesting angles.

I shot the lift by putting the camera on the monopod, so I could lift the camera high in the air. My Canon 60D has an LCD screen that can be angled, so I see what the camera is pointing at, even when it is two meters above my head. (I bought the 60D because the LCD screen makes it eminently useful for trick shots of various kinds.)

I used the self-timer on the camera, and focused manually. Autofocus does not work well when the camera is wobbling on a long pole.

Here is a thoroughly conventional wide angle shot.

 There is a spot in the park where you can see two buildings with reflections in the water, if the day is calm. Well, I was lucky. It wasn't windy, and thanks to the wide angle lens, I could get both buildings and the reflections in a single shot.

This is a thoroughly conventional shot, but there are still some things to take note of. In particular, take care with the edges of your shot. There are trees in the park, and some of them have rather long branches. I had to compose the shot carefully to avoid branches poking in at the edges.

When I had left the park I saw some divers in the canal. It turned out to be the Gårda Fire Department that was out practicing.

With a 10-20mm lens you need to get close, so I simply asked if it was ok to shoot while they were practicing. It was. I got some nice shots.

I made a mistake though. I should have lain down flat on the ground and shot slightly upwards, to get a more interesting angle for the shot of the diver.

Well, the next time I shoot a diver, I know what to do.

I met an interesting character while visiting the Science-Fiction Bookstore.

In this shot, you can see the difference it makes when you shoot from a low angle and tilt the camera up.

In Sweden, there is a yearly book sale that is quite an event. Lots of people who don't normally read books rush out and buy them, in order to not read them.

I usually do not participate in the frenzy, because I am stocked with books that I do read all year round. However, you can sometimes find a gem or two at the sale, so I sometimes do visit a bookstore or two.

I got the alien shot at the Science-Fiction Bookstore. My favorite bookstore in Gothenburg.

I went to Domkyrkan, the largest church in Gothenburg, to take panorama shots. The plan fell through because of the church is undergoing quite extensive restauration.

I settled for a less exiting shot of a candle, and decided to save the panorama shots for another day, and another blog post.

My son was happy to see me when I turned up at his school.

A basic rule of child photography says never, ever, shoot downwards! In most cases, it's a good rule. If you shoot downwards, you will shoot at the same angle you normally see children, and you will get boring shots.

However, with a wide angle lens, you can break the rule with good results. The perspective distortion lends interest to the shot. Even more important, if you can catch a great expression like the one my son has in this shot, you can get away with almost anything.

If you want to go a bit artsy, and focus on form, a wide angle lens is great. The most difficult part was keeping my own feet out of the picture. I used a filter built into my camera to turn the photo black and white.

The public library in Partille

One more example of going high and tilting down to distort lines and lending visual interest to a photo.

In the evening, I went to a meeting with the Lerum photography club. I took this shot on my way to the train. The lens makes the bridge look a lot longer than it really is.

When I got to the meeting, I took a shot of the building before going in. I placed the camera at ground level, and tilted it a bit. 

The 10-20mm range is more versatile than you might think. At 10mm I can cover most of a large room in a single shot. At 20mm I can get a fairly close shot without standing nose-to-nose with my subject.

The shots from the meeting are interesting only if you were at the meeting, so I'll be brief. After two days of thoroughly enjoyable testing, I am quite smitten with the lens. I like it a lot, and I know I can get great shots with it.

You might be interested to know that I lit the photos in the collage with a single Nissin Di866 Mk II flash. Thanks to the white walls, that was all the light that was needed.

Sigma has two 10-20mm lenses. The one I bought is the f/3.5 version, which is slightly more expensive than the other f/4-f/5.6 variable aperture version. In my opinion, getting the f/3.5 lens is worth it. I know I will be shooting indoors in less than ideal lighting conditions, so I need that extra bit of light sensitivity.

After two days, I have just begun to put the lens through its paces, so I have more fun testing to do in the near future.

Clowning Around: Doing lighting tests with Anna Sigvardsson

Clowning around.
Photo: ©2013, Anna Sigvardsson

I owe Anna Sigvardsson a lot. She is one of the people who influenced my current career choice very strongly. Anna is a great photographer, and extraordinarily good at making people comfortable in front of the camera.


I met Anna at a mingling event a couple of years ago. As it turned out, we had some shared interests. She was a very good professional photographer, and I wanted to learn. At the time, I just wanted to take better photos. (There is a story there, but I'll save that for another blog post.) Over time we met now and then, had a cup of coffee here, ran into a mingling event there, and we always talked about photography. Always interesting conversation, and always inspiring.

My version of Evil Clown. I jumped at the opportunity to don the clown nose.
Photo: ©2013, Anna Sigvardsson

When Anna needed a model to test lighting setups in her studio, I jumped at the opportunity to get in front of her camera. I have modeled for Anna before, and it has always been loads of fun. Working with other photographers, whether you shoot with them, model, direct the shoot, or fetch coffee, also provides great opportunities to learn. I want to do it as often as possible.

There is another reason: Standing in front of a camera can be difficult. Even professional models can become uncomfortable. Standing in front of the camera helps me empathize. Empathy helps me help whoever I am photographing to relax so that we can create better photos together. Anna is a master at making people relax in front of a camera. I know no one whom I would rather learn from.

Clown front and centre. You can see the lighting setup, two softboxes to the sides, and an octabox angled downwards in the middle. As you can see, my shadow falls on the paper, but low, so that it does not show in the portraits.
Photo: ©2013, Anna Sigvardsson

For the shoot, Anna used a large silver umbrella at the front, and two large softboxes to the sides. At various points in the shoot, Anna moved the strobes slightly, or changed the power settings. The softboxes did not just light me, they also lit the brown paper behind me.

You may wonder why I wear a hat, sunglasses, and a clown nose. It is because the tiara I tried first did not fit. Just standing there in a black t-shirt would not have been very fun, so we dived into Anna's stash of props to spiff me up a bit.

Anna looks good in photos no matter what you do, so shooting her was easy.

I know only two photographers who can shoot me and make me look good. Anna is one of them. On the other hand, Anna looks good no matter what. Her favorite camera is a Canon 5D Mk III, which is what was used for all these shots.

Me the way I usually look.
Photo: ©2013, Anna Sigvardsson

You might wonder if Anna took any photos of me looking more like, well, me. She did. The one above is my favorite.

We had a wonderful afternoon, geeking out with lighting and photography. If you are serious about photography, I strongly recommend practicing and experimenting with friends who share your interests. Great fun, and you will learn a lot.

A couple of days later, Anna and her boyfriend David invited me to a housewarming party in their new apartment. On my way there I saw this elephant… But that is another shoot, and another story.

The abusive rose

The picture of the rose above was tagged as "abusive content" and blocked by Facebook when I tried to post it. Ridiculous, of course, but it is more than that.

Censorship on the Internet can easily turn into a big problem, a larger problem than the, sometimes nonexistent, problems the censors try to solve.

All censorship is based on rules. These rules are based on cultural standards. When we have a cultural melting pot, like the Internet, there is a strong tendency to create very tight rules of censorship, so as not to offend anyone.

The problem is that no matter what you show, say, or do, there is always someone that will take offense:

There are people who are deeply offended by: The sight of female hair (on the head), scientific methods (for example creationists), nipples, voting rights for women, people with dark skin, people with white skin, female hair (in armpits), nudity, the hijab (Islamic veil)... The list is endless.

If you create ethical standards based on the idea that you may not offend anyone, then you end up creating algorithms that ban roses.

I must admit, I am deeply offended by this.

Awhile ago I had another photo banned by Google. It was a photo of Carl Milles famous Poseidon statue. The statue is located at Götaplatsen in Gothenburg, right at the end of the Avenue, the largest, busiest street in Gothenburg. The Poseidon statue is nude. Thousands of people pass by every day, without any ill effects.

I made a censored version of the Poseidon picture and put it on a t-shirt. You can read about it here.

Google lifted the ban after a couple of days, but the problem remains: The idea that what can be shown or said, discussed, and thought, should be defined by the most narrow minded among us.

Maybe it's time for a new t-shirt, with a rose this time.