Alone

Alone - B&W version. Be mindful that alone and lonely are two very different things. You can be alone without being lonely, and the loneliest place I know is a crowd.

Recently, I was asked to leave a group for people with "artistic aspirations" by the moderator of the group. There were two reasons:

• I have the habit of writing a bit about each picture. According to the moderator of the group, this is bad, because art should speak for itself.
• My pictures lack every ounce of artistic merit.

I left the group. Why spend time arguing, when I can spend it creating pictures, or discussing art with people who do want to discuss art?

I had not planned writing about it, but today, I saw that same moderator post a video about the importance of including everyone, and never, ever shutting anyone out.

The first thing I thought was, "wow, what a hypocrite!"
My second thought was, "is she a hypocrite, or just incredibly stupid?"
The third thing that popped into my mind was, "I really hope I am not that stupid too."

Alone - Color version.

I often find myself holding the view of a minority, and quite often, the minority is just me. That can make me feel more than a little bit lonely, but it also has advantages. It makes it easier to examine, and re-examine, my views to see if I need to adjust them, or if I am outright wrong.

Quite often, when I thoroughly re-examine facts and logic, I find that I was right from the start. This is of course quite worrying, because there are many more ways to be wrong than right. If I rarely change my mind, then maybe I am not as good at absorbing new facts and re-examining my beliefs as I think I am.

I try not to judge other people's art though.

Artists work with languages of symbols. There are many such symbol languages, and I speak but a few. I cannot judge the quality of art that is created with symbols unknown to me, or that do not evoke an emotional response in me.

In the cases where I am qualified to judge why should I? I either enjoy the piece, or I do not. If I enjoy something, yes, I do tell the artist that, but if I do not, there is no reason to say so. It won't help the artist. It won't make me happier either.

Discussing art is a way of transferring knowledge about the symbol languages of art. It makes it possible to appreciate and enjoy art that one cannot otherwise appreciate and enjoy.

There are many artists I admire, and many, perhaps most, of them are very good at discussing their art. Some, like Joe McNally, William Mortensen, Scott Kelby, and Stan Lee, have written books about their way of creating art. Alex Ross makes videos. So do many others.

I believe, very strongly, that if I do not write and talk about what I do, I would severely limit my own development. Wether anyone else finds what I write and say useful...well, that is for them to say. I just do my best.

Fortunately, I have friends who are willing to share their understanding of art. I just hope my ideas have enough merit, so I can give my friends something in return for all the ideas and insights they have given me over the years.

So, while I do withdraw from others quite often, in order to think and work, and thus is often alone, thanks to friends and family, I am rarely lonely, despite my tendency to be a misfit in social media groups.

Kyla Rising - Contrast and composition

I often look at pictures made by the artists I admire, like Joe Jusko, Gerald Brom, Frank Frazetta, William Mortensen, and Michael Whelan, to better understand what it is that makes their work outstanding.

One of the things is contrast! Look at the work of the artists I listed. Black & White pictures are nearly always high contrast, with the main subject clearly differentiated from everything else in the picture. It is the same thing with the color pictures. If you turn on of their color pictures Black & White, you will see the same thing: Clear separation of subjects and background. The main subject clearly separated from everything else.

There are exceptions, but those are deliberate exceptions, when blending different parts together is the point. It rarely happens by accident.

Me, I am struggling, and, I hope, slowly learning to do the same thing.

The picture above is a visual analysis of the picture, similar to the one I made for Arachnophobia II. Even though I have used many elements borrowed from Mortensen's visual language, and some from other sources, the primary element is contrast: Light and darkness, sex and fear, water (soft), and stone (hard).

Below are  four different versions of Kyla Rising, two in colour, and two B&W. Have a look at them.Which is your favorite version? Why?

That is all for now. I'll get back to preparing picture ideas and photo sessions for 2019.

Be seeing you!

Wolf Moon - Where are all the Female Werewolves?

Wolf Moon

A long time ago, when I was way to young to watch horror movies, I used to watch them anyway, with my grandfather. I was completely mesmerized by Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolf Man, the 1941 original of course, not the 2010 remake.

Over the years, I have seen my fair share of werewolf movies, good and not so good: An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Howling (1981), The Company of Wolves (1984), Teen Wolf (), Wolf (Jack Nicholson, 1994), Dog soldiers (2002), and a couple of others.

Two observations:

• Werewolves were more popular in the 80's than they are now. Yes, there are modern werewold movies, like the Wolfman (2010) remake of the original Lon Chaney, Jr. movie, but they are nowhere near as popular as they used to be.
• There is a distinct lack of female werewolves, both in old and newer movies. There are exceptions like Ginger Snaps (2000, and supposed to be good, I haven't seen it), but overall, werewolves tend to be male.

 It struck me that if I want to do werewolf pictures, redressing the gender imbalance would be a good thing.

Wolf Moon - High Contrast B&W

So far, I am just experimenting with a werewolf 3D model, dramatic lighting setups, and postprocessing styles.

The next step is to create a storyboard, or two, and to try to get models interested.

Would you be interested in facing a werewolf a moon-lit night?

Storyboarding - the key to better collaboration between model and photographer

Cat and Mouse

For the past couple of years I have been storyboarding my photo sessions, usually with simple, and rather ugly, pencil sketches.

Some time ago, I decided to step up the quality of the storyboards a bit. There are two reasons for this:

• I can set up and test the 3D parts of my pictures before the photo session. That makes it easier for me to see whether a picture will look as good on screen, or printed, as it looks inside my head. If it does not, I can scrap the picture before I do a shoot with a model. That saves both the model and me a lot of time and effort.
• When I discuss a shoot with a model, I can show something that is fairly close to what the final picture will look like. That way, it is easier for a model to decide whether she/he is interested or not. It is also easier to discuss how to set up the shoot, what props will be needed, and what the model will have to do to prepare for the shoot. This also saves time overall, and improves the final result.

What I do now, is that I shoot my backgrounds first, then render and composit 3D elements, and use a 3D model as a stand-in for human models. After compositing, I also do the final painting process.

This gets me as close as I can to a final result without doing the actual photo session with a live model.

Cat People

Cat People is a good example. A model can see  what the final result will look like, the position she will sit in, and the overall mood of the picture. Of course, if the model I work with have suggestions for variations and improvements, I am happy to discuss them, and try them out.

I use the picture to figure out how to light the model during the photo shoot, camera angles, whether to change anything in the 3D render, possible variations... There is a lot of stuff that can change from when I created this storyboard to the final picture. What the storyboard provides, is a great starting point.

Taking the Jaguar out for a Spin

Rite of Passage

That's it, for now. Next time, a few words about werewolves.

Kyla: A Gift for the Queen

A Gift for the Queen

Much as I like the Fantasy art of the 80's, there are some things that disturb me. For example, the frequently recurring theme of subjugation of women by implied or overt force. While Fantasy art may have improved a bit, I do have some doubts whether society at large has become more gender balanced, or if the gender biases and prejudices are merely better hidden.

One way to bring gender issues to the fore, is to flip the roles around, so I did.

If you want to see a couple of variants of this picture, check them out at ArtStation.

End of Days: A Visitor from R´lyeh

It's been awhile since I worked on a picture. The reason is that I got a new job, and I went into deep immersion mode to get up to speed as quickly as possible.

I really like the job, and I think it has affected my ability to make pictures. It's not just that I lack time. I am much to happy to make dark, brooding, or horrific stuff.

I tried to make the picture above a nighttime picture with the monster partially visible in a cone of light from the helicopter.

It didn't work. Finally, I gave up and made a bright and cheerful. watercolor style, picture instead.

Of course, once I have the base image, I can paint it in many different styles, so I can make a dark, ink-like painting if I want to, like the one above. Perhaps it does suit the Lovecraftian theme a bit better.

Oh, well, back to work...my new job, that is.

Postcards from Halmstad

I have been in Halmstad twice recently, once for a birthday party, the other time to visit my mother.

Whenever I visit, I like to take long walks with my camera. The environment is quite different from Gothenburg, so I can get pictures there, that are a bit different from what I shoot in Gothenburg.

I haven't started a Halmstad Nudes series though. I have thought about it, but I want to finish the Öland Nudes series first, and as I mentionen in my previous blog post, I will have limited time to make pictures in at least the near future.

So, without further ado, here are a few pictures from Halmstad. I hope they give you at least a little bit of a feel for the city where I grew up.

Talking a walk in the Halmstad harbor is fun, and occasionally rewarding. I rather like this shot of an old crane. The composition is clean, the colors vibrant, and it looks like what it is, a fine summer day.

Many years ago, I was a member of the Halmstad canoe club. There was a rowing club right across on the opposite side of Nissan, the river that runs through the city.

I do not know if this guy is from the rowing club, but he just might be.

There are some old streets in Halmstad. This one, Hantverkargatan, looks like something Paul Cezanne would paint, so I processed the photo in a Cezanne-ish style. Turned out better than I expected.

There is a bridge near the Halmstad City Library, where young lovers like to leave padlocks as a symbol of their eternal love.

There is a Swedish saying that "old love never rusts". Given the somewhat tarnished appearance of most of the padlocks, I found that quite funny.

I do hope the love lasts longer than the padlocks.

One day I went to the Gunilla Park to have lunch, sandwiches, on a bench near the Gunilla Fountain.

Talk about a work of art rife with symbolism...


The statue is from the late 40´s. There is some debate over who created it. Various sources claim it was Axel Emil Lindskog, J.E. Lindeskog, or maybe K.B. Bjering.

I got a few shots more while I was in Halmstad, but I'll leave those for another time.

Be seeing you!