Photo sit: Shooting ghosts and talking about photo books

Teamwork: Sinikka Eriksson has a large mug of coffee while a ghostly Ulf Bodmar sneaks up. Stefan Kroll pressed the camera trigger, while  Akram Ahmet and I handled flashes with snoot and speed grid. Shutter time: 4.0s, f/22.

It's a simple idea: Use Facebook and Google+ to bring a group of photography buffs together, and use whatever we bring, or can find on the premises, to experiment and learn.

The idea was born during a very rainy Drink-and-Click meeting some months ago. We hid from the rain in a restaurant, and everyone sat and did nothing, except looking out at the pouring rain. 

If you live in Gothenburg, you live with a lot of rain, so I knew this would be sure to happen again. I love photo walks and Drink-and-Click, but those are mostly about street photo. I wanted something that would let me develop my other interests, ranging from portraiture, to trick photography, to macro, and other things. And, I wanted to be warm and cozy, even if it did rain.

From the first photo meet up: The magical diamond.

For the first meeting I brought a "diamond". The task was to take a photo of the diamond emitting a magical field of force.

At the second photography meet up, the themes were ghosts, and photography books. the meet up was at Condeco, a café in Gothenburg to talk, have coffee, and experiment with photography.

Like the first time, the experimenting with photography part soon took over. Who has time for coffee, when there are things to shoot?

Just a couple of hours before the shoot I went to a party store and bought a cheap skull mask. A quick inventory among us yielded a few interesting objects: a knife and a book shaped phone shell.

Getting in close often makes a photo more interesting by hiding parts of objects. It also reduces the depth of field. The skull mask is a lot more interesting because it is out of focus and only partially visible. The flash was set to -3 EV. I wanted the flash to help the ambient light along a bit, not overpower it. I used a speed grid on the flash to avoid light spilling where I did not want it.

These get togethers are a bit like Open Space sessions at conferences: Anyone can come up with an idea. If people like it, we'll do it, if they don't, we won't. The group can work together, or split off in smaller teams that do entirely different things.

We are there to learn and have fun. As long as we do that, what we do, and who takes the lead, does not matter.

This photo was shot with my iPhone 4 and the Lenslight app from Brainfever Media. I took it to show that you do not need a DSLR to be in on the fun.

It's like a photo walk, except without the walking. Of course a DSLR and a ton of gear can be useful, but you do not need it. A camera phone is good enough. It is not about the gear you buy, it's about the gear between your ears: Imagination, a sense of humor, and a learning mindset is all you need.

Actually, you do not even need a camera. We want to get in touch with models, MUAs, cosplayers, lighting experts, stylists, and other people who would enjoy creating stuff together.

After the second meeting, I created a Facebook group to make it easier for interested people to keep in touch. Until now, we have posted our photos in the events created for the meet ups. By posting to the group instead, we can make a more permanent record of the things we do.

I am working on a photo book, and some of the photos from these events will almost certainly work their way in.

If you live in the Gothenburg area, you are welcome to join up. If you do not, why not create a local group? If you do, get in touch with me on Facebook or Google+, so we can link up the groups and exchange ideas and photo themes.

Flash comic: Three comic panels about using flash with colored gels to set moods

Superheroes and monsters

A moment of solitude and focus before the party. This is my favorite shot from the evening.

I shot at the Superhero Halloween party organized by Superheroes against cancer last weekend. It was a fun shoot. When you shoot at an event you have little control, but you can still plan and prepare.

I showed up early, about half an hour before the event, to check out lighting and talk a with the lighting people. I took some test shots, and experimented a bit with the ambient lighting. I had a couple of ideas I wanted to try out:

• I knew I would need flash, but I did not want to knock out the ambient lighting. My idea was to  use relatively long shutter times and large apertures (small aperture numbers) to let in as much light as possible in the camera. By putting the flash on 2nd curtain, I figured I'd be able to freeze foreground subjects with a relatively weak (underexposed by 0.7 to 2.3 stops, depening on the distance to the subject) flash.
• Halloween and superpowers, so I wanted to shoot ghosts and supers moving at super speed. I knew I could do that by dragging the shutter. That means I used extremely long shutter times, often between 0.5s and a full second. I made sure to take a number of shots at shorter shutter times too, to get a number of more normal pictures.

It turned out pretty well. Everyone had a blast at the event, and I got some pretty good event photos.

Superman moving in on Lois Lane using super speed.

Bloody Mary, anyone?

This guy stayed in costume all night. That is, I do hope he was in costume...

Cat woman attacked by ghost. Will she make it?

Hockey, anyone?

Join me for a drink?

These people kick ass!

It was a target rich environment!

Medic! Wait, no, another medic...please!

Fortunately, Cat woman survived the ghost attack.

Dead girl dancing.

Are you afraid? You will be...

I was photographing this beautiful woman, when suddenly, a vampire materialized and attacked.

We are armed and have no sense of humor!

When I saw these two mannequins I was reminded of a quote from The Core:

FBI Agent: Dr. Keyes, your presence is required in the Pentagon.

Dr. Josh Keyes: Aaah, it's my best buddies! Hey! Why don't you join us for a drink?

FBI Agent: We'd be grateful if you could join us - for a ride, sir.

Dr. Josh Keyes: And if I were to say no? I'm just asking.

FBI Agent: Well, we have no sense of humor.

Dr. Josh Keyes: That's true.

FBI Agent: And we're armed.

I tweaked the image a bit in post, of course: Turned it black and white, increased contrast and detail, sharpened it a bit. I also removed a reflection in the glass between me and the mannequins.

You can have quite a bit of fun shooting mannequins in shop windows. It is good practice, and mannequins do not complain if you experiment a bit, and botch something.

The act of walking around camera in hand forces you to be in the now. You can't walk around thinking of the past, or the future, you have to be there, or you won't get the shot.

The purpose of shop windows is to draw attention, so it should not be a surprise that you can find interesting things to shoot in them.

So, get out there and shoot!

Drink and Click in Gothenburg

Photo walks are a great way to meet other photographers and have some fun. Here are some pictures from a Drink and Click event in Gothenburg.

Set the shutter time to 0.3 seconds, steady the camera by holding it against a street light, wait until something fast moving comes along, and CLICK!

Two walkers.

Booh! Halloween is coming up.

Maid and Tall Butler

Maid and a very tall butler

I visited the maid café Project Dandy with four friends, who also happen to be photographers. Maid cafés are a type of cosplay cafés where guests are greeted by maids and butlers, and treated like masters and mistresses of Victorian homes. The goal of Project Dandy is to create the first maid café in Gothenburg.

Stay tuned! You just might hear a bit more about Project Dandy, maid cafés and cosplay if you do.

How to turn a photo into a drawing with Pixelmator

My Hesser

Pixelmator has a filter for turning photos into drawings, but the results are not always what you want. There is a simple technique you can use to achieve more pleasing results, with only a little more effort.

Here is a step-by-step description of how I created the picture above.

1. Start by opening a good photo in Pixelmator. Your subject should be well lit, and the background as simple as possible. I used a photo of My Hesser, from a studio photo session awhile ago.
2. Duplicate the photo layer. This way, you can easily go back to the original if you need to.
3. Turn off the original layer, so it won't show.
4. Select the layer you just duplicated. It would not do to work on the wrong layer. :-)
5. Select the parts of the photo you want to turn into a drawing. It is usually a good idea to use Edit->Refine Selection... to fine tune the selection.
6. Invert the selection, so that the parts you want to use are protected from editing.
7. Use the Eraser tool to erase everything that is not protected. This will leave you with a transparent background.
8. Desaturate the photo. Pixelmator has a filter for this.
9. Duplicate the layer with the desaturated photo.
10. Invert the layer you just created. Yep, there is a filter for this too.
11. Change the blend mode of the inverted layer to Color Dodge. The photo should go white. Don't worry, we'll bring the picture back in a moment.
12. Use the Gaussian Blur filter on the inverted layer. The radius should be about 45 pixels. Now you should see the picture, looking like a drawing.
13. Group the two top layers.
14. Duplicate the group. This is just so you can go back to an earlier stage if necessary.
15. Merge the group.
16. Apply a Level filter to get look you want.

Done!