tirsdag 19. oktober 2010

Foto av en tatovering som blir til

Tatoveringer er kule og vakre, de er omgjerdet av en slags mystikk som fascinerer de fleste. Det er lett å forstå at noen ønsker å utsmykke kroppen sin med en tatovering, selv om man kanskje ikke selv er villig til å la seg utsmykke.
Jeg er fascinert av tatoveringer og har alltid hatt lyst til å ta foto av tatoveringer. Jeg har aldri selv funnet et motiv jeg har lyst til å ha på kroppen til evig tid, men det har Anne Kathrine, hun er akkurat nå igang med å utsmykke hele ryggen med en ny tatovering.

Omriss av tatovering lages først

Jeg var så heldig å få lov å være med å ta foto, da Anne Katrine fikk laget omrisset til den nye tatovering, fargelegging skjer på et senere stadie når omrisset har satt seg.

Svart/hvit foto

Jeg hadde på forhånd et ønske om å ta svart/hvit bilder og konsentrere meg om komposisjon og lys. Bildene ble behandlet i Adobe Lightroom med utgangspunkt i mitt Svart/Hvit Høy Kontrast Lightroom Preset.

Takk til Anne Katrine og Pepe fra House of Pain i Storgata/Oslo som lot meg komme tett på med kameraet.

Jeg brukte et Canon 5D mkII + objektivene Canon 50mm f/1.4 og Canon 17-40mm f/4L, håndholdt, ingen flash.












tirsdag 12. oktober 2010

Bryllupsfotograf for første gang

Du har vært interessert i foto så lenge du husker, du har tatt bilder av alt mulig rart opp gjennom tiden. Du får kanskje av og til en hyggelig kommentar på dine bilder, men den dagen noen spør deg: "Kan ikke du ta bilder i mitt bryllup?" blir du litt skremt! Det er veldig flatterende, men samtidig veldig skummelt...

Jeg har tatt en del portretter som jeg er stolte av, men jeg har aldri vært nødt til å prestere. Hvis ikke det ble noe fint, var det ikke så farlig. Men å dokumentere et bryllup er noe annet, der må man levere. Det går ikke i etterkant å si: "Nei du, det ble ikke noen fine bilder...".

I dette blogginnlegg skriver jeg litt om hvordan min første dag som bryllupsfotograf forløp og hvilke forberedelser jeg gjorde. Det hele endte til sist med at jeg levert en nettside med alle bildene arrangert i forskjellige slideshows.

Jeg skriver med vilje "dokumentere et bryllup", for det er min stil. Jeg jobber helst med naturlig lys, eller én enkelt flash. Flashen er enten montert på kameraet og reflekteres fra taket, eller flashen tas av kamera og holdes i hånden. Eventuelt bruker jeg en liten softbox som settes på flashen.
Det første jeg fikk avklart med bruden var om hun liker min stil. Og man må være klar over en ting, i et bryllup handler det kun om én ting: Bruden. Det er hennes dag, det hun som skal stråle!

Har man først sakt ja til å fotografere et bryllup, må man planlegge hele dagen. Jeg møtte derfor brudeparet sammen med vigsleren, på stedet der den humanetiske vielsen skulle finne sted. Der snakket vi om de ønsker bruden hadde og planla alle detaljer.
Mitt første bryllup som fotograf (og brudens første som brud) startet hjemme hos brudens foreldre, hvor jeg ble kjent med de to forlovere. Der tok jeg en masse bilder. Det ble et par fine, men de første timene brukte jeg mest på å bli kjent med bruden og forloverne. Ikke minst skulle de bli vant til at jeg var der med kamera hele tiden.

7D+50mm: ISO640 80mm f/1.4 1/400sec


5DII+17-40mm: ISO1250 17mm f/4.5 1/250sec flash


Jeg har et Canon 5D mkII, Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, Canon 17-40mm f/4L & Canon 50mm f/1.4 som egentlig er alt jeg trenger... normalt... Når man må levere i et bryllup, kan man ikke risikere at kameraet plutselig går i stykker. Jeg lånte derfor et Canon 7D av en kompis, takk til Fredrik ;)
Innendørs hadde jeg 17-40mm på 5DII med flash og 50mm på 7D som ble til 80mm på grunn av den lille sensoren i 7D'en. De to objektiver dekket et stort område og ga mulighet for noen skikkelig portretter på 80mm f/1.4 med kort fokusområde.

Utendørs skiftet jeg mellom 17-40mm og 70-200mm på 5DII. Jeg elsker å jobbe med Canon sitt 70-200mm f/2.8L IS objektiv, alltid skarpe bilder. Men fordi jeg liker f/2.8 så mye, kan en eller flere personer komme ut av fokus ved gruppebilder... men det sier vi selvfølgelig er gjort med vilje, det er jo en del av mitt artistiske uttrykk ;)

5DII+70-200mm: ISO1250 160mm f/2.8 1/2500sec


5DII+70-200mm: ISO1250 200mm f/2.8 1/2500sec


5DII+70-200mm: ISO1250 148mm f/4 1/1250sec


Brudeparet hadde valgt å holde en resepsjon med en liten lunsj for familie og forlovere, min oppgaver var å ta de tradisjonelle familie/forlover bilder, Men jeg skulle også prøve å fange parets 2 årige sønn som ikke hadde så veldig lyst til å sitte på mammas fang. Det ble noen fine bilder av sønnen, men kanskje ikke så estetiske ;)
Bruden hadde til gjengjeld en liten stolt niese som passet bedre til oppstasete portretter :)

7D+50mm: ISO640 80mm f/1.4 1/250sec


Bruden elsker høstfarger så vi hadde avtalt at brudepar-bilder skulle tas på Hvalstrand. Jeg dro ut til Hvalstrand et par dager før bryllupet og sjekket lysforhold og potensielle lokasjoner.
Turen til Hvalstrand gikk så klart i limousin ;)

5DII+17-40mm: ISO1250 17mm f/4 1/50sec flash


5DII+17-40mm: ISO1250 17mm f/4 1/30sec flash


På Hvalstrand var det utrolig morsomt og det ble mange bra bilder, ikke minst på grunn av 5 glade unge mennesker som ikke var redd å prøve litt morsomme ting :)
I fotosekken lå en ekstra flash + flashremote og jeg dro to stativer til flashene med meg rundt. Men det var en overskyet dag som ga det nydeligste lyset, så jeg brukte for det meste kun naturlig lys.

Etterpå gikk turen tilbake og det gikk slag i slag med mottakelse av gjester, vielse og resepsjon etterpå. Jeg dokumenterte så godt jeg kunne, men fy søren det er vanskelig å få fine bilder når mange mennesker er samlet på et forholdsvis lite sted.
Jeg hadde kun ett ekstra batteri til 2 kameraer, men jeg trengte ikke lade i det hele tatt. Jeg fikk plass til 1500+ fotos på 3 8GB kort + 2 4GB kort... jeg hadde et 8GB i reserve så det var ingen krise. Jeg skulle kanskje hatt et til batteri med, pluss 2-3 8GB kort ekstra... men men, det gikk bra... Jeg hadde alle minnekort i beltet fra start til slutt, hadde ikke vært greit hvis de lå i en fotosekk som plutselig ble borte...
Jeg sa farvel til brudeparet og alle gjestene da middagen begynte, da hadde jeg vært i ilden i 8 timer.

Da jeg kom hjem brukte jeg kvelden til å laste bildene inn i Lightroom i et eget Catalog. Også grov sortering hvor jeg kastet halvdelen av bildene ble gjort den samme kvelden.
Jeg brukte deretter ca 15 timer på prosessering og publisering til nettside, alt sammen gjort fra Lightroom. Ikke en eneste gang var jeg innom Photoshop!. Jeg laget et sett med fargebilder, og et sett med svart/hvit bilder. Selve nettsiden snekret jeg i Adobe Dreamweaver. Alle bilder fra bryllupet kan sees her.
Hadde jeg vært litt mere businessmann hadde jeg insistert på at jeg skulle levere print, men bruden er grafisk designer så hun fikser dette best selv.

Takk til Sissel og Rune for en utrolig fin opplevelse, må de leve lykkelig til deres dagers ende :)
Takk også til forloverne Tanja, Kathrine og Trygve som var til stor hjelp.

5DII+70-200mm: ISO320 130mm f/2.8 1/400sec


5DII+70-200mm: ISO320 140mm f/2.8 1/400sec


5DII+70-200mm: ISO320 160mm f/2.8 1/250sec


5DII+70-200mm: ISO320 100mm f/2.8 1/800sec


5DII+70-200mm: ISO320 200mm f/2.8 1/320sec


5DII+17-40mm: ISO1250 19mm f/4 1/250sec flash


7D+50mm: ISO640 80mm f/1.4 1/250sec


7D+50mm: ISO640 80mm f/1.4 1/1000sec

tirsdag 14. september 2010

Asimov - The Relativity of Wrong

Isaac Asimov - The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 14 No. 1, Fall 1989
pg.. 35-44

I RECEIVED a letter the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, the writer told me he was majoring in English literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, so I read on.)

It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the universe straight.

I didn't go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and 1930. What's more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and 1930.

These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see.

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.

My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I think so.

...When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same degree? Let's take an example.

In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the earth was flat. This was not because people were stupid, or because they were intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of sound evidence. It was not just a matter of "That's how it looks," because the earth does not look flat. It looks chaotically bumpy, with hills, valleys, ravines, cliffs, and so on.

Of course there are plains where, over limited areas, the earth's surface does look fairly flat. One of those plains is in the Tigris-Euphrates area, where the first historical civilization (one with writing) developed, that of the Sumerians.

Perhaps it was the appearance of the plain that persuaded the clever Sumerians to accept the generalization that the earth was flat; that if you somehow evened out all the elevations and depressions, you would be left with flatness. Contributing to the notion may have been the fact that stretches of water (ponds and lakes) looked pretty flat on quiet days.

Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the "curvature" of the earth's surface Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.

Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long.

There were reasons, to be sure, to find the flat-earth theory unsatisfactory and, about 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle summarized them. First, certain stars disappeared beyond the Southern Hemisphere as one traveled north, and beyond the Northern Hemisphere as one traveled south. Second, the earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always the arc of a circle. Third, here on the earth itself, ships disappeared beyond the horizon hull-first in whatever direction they were traveling.

All three observations could not be reasonably explained if the earth's surface were flat, but could be explained by assuming the earth to be a sphere.

What's more, Aristotle believed that all solid matter tended to move toward a common center, and if solid matter did this, it would end up as a sphere. A given volume of matter is, on the average, closer to a common center if it is a sphere than if it is any other shape whatever.

About a century after Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes noted that the sun cast a shadow of different lengths at different latitudes (all the shadows would be the same length if the earth's surface were flat). From the difference in shadow length, he calculated the size of the earthly sphere and it turned out to be 25,000 miles in circumference.

The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the flat earth to the spherical earth.

Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The earth cannot be mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn't taken into account and if the earth isn't considered a sphere rather than a flat surface. Long ocean voyages can't be undertaken with any reasonable way of locating one's own position in the ocean unless the earth is considered spherical rather than flat.

Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite earth, or of the existence of an "end" to the surface. The spherical earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings.

So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in favor of the spherical-earth theory.

And yet is the earth a sphere?

No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has certain mathematical properties&emdash;for instance, all diameters (that is, all straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, to another point on its surface) have the same length.

That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth differ in length.

What gave people the notion the earth wasn't a true sphere? To begin with, the sun and the moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope. This is consistent with the supposition that the sun and the moon are perfectly spherical in shape.

However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets were not circles, but distinct eclipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn were not true spheres.

Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces (exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up that would lift the body's substance against gravity, and this effect would be greater the closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the more rapidly a spherical object rotated, and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very rapidly indeed.

The earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the curvature of the earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton was proved correct.

The earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the poles. It is an "oblate spheroid" rather than a sphere. This means that the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite point on the equator. This "equatorial diameter" is 12,755 kilometers (7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South Pole and this "polar diameter" is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles).

The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers (27 miles), and that means that the "oblateness" of the earth (its departure from true sphericity) is 44/12755, or 0.0034. This amounts to l/3 of 1 percent.

To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile everywhere. On the earth's spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On the earth's oblate spheroidal surface, the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the mile.

The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the earth as a sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the notion of the earth as flat.

Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the earth is wrong, strictly speaking. In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard I was put into orbit about the earth, it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the earth--and therefore its shape--with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer the center of the earth than the North Pole sea level was.

There seemed no other way of describing this than by saying the earth was pear-shaped, and at once many people decided that the earth was nothing like a sphere but was shaped like a Bartlett pear dangling in space. Actually, the pearlike deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards rather than miles, and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of an inch per mile.

In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after.

What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.

This can be pointed out in many cases other than just the shape of the earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured.

Copernicus switched from an earth-centered planetary system to a sun-centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky, and eventually the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement standards of the time that kept it in being so long.

Again, it is because the geological formations of the earth change so slowly and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at first to suppose that there was no change and that the earth and life always existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference whether the earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. Thousands were easier to grasp.

But when careful observation showed that the earth and life were changing at a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that the earth and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the notion of biological evolution.

If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the difference between the rate of change in a static universe and the rate of change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that the creationists can continue propagating their folly.

Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements.

The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today.

The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the earth to be the center of the universe. Their measurements have been enormously refined but the principle remains.

Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the simplistic sense of my English Lit correspondent, but in a much truer and subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete.

Copied from: Asimov - The Relativity of Wrong: "The Relativity of Wrong

søndag 5. september 2010

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

I Adobe Lightroom kan man lagre en kombinasjon av innstillinger i et såkalt presets. Jeg liker å konvertere portretter til svart/hvit med høy kontrast for derigjennom å fremheve modellen og komposisjonen.
Jeg har derfor laget et Lightroom preset, som jeg bruker som utgangspunkt for mine svart/hvit portretter.
Last ned filen mortenprom.com.bw.high.contrast.lrtemplate, og lagre den i din prests mappe. Høyreklikk på "User Presets" i Presets panelet og velg "import". Naviger til filen du lastet ned og velg den, du har nå et bra utgangspunkt for svart/hvit portretter med høy kontrast.

Eksponeringen må normalt justeres etterpå, det kan også være at det må legges inn litt Fill Light, hvis det er detaljer i skyggene som skal vises. Hva som skal justeres i etterkant er helt opp til deg og din personlige smak ;)

Sjekk bildene i full Screen Slideshow.

De fleste av følgende eksempler er tatt med Canon 5D mkII + Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. Men også et par stykker med Canon sitt lille men fine 50mm f/1.4.

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

Lightroom preset: B&W Høy Kontrast

torsdag 26. august 2010

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Rundt Oslo finnes det utrolig mange fine plasser langs fjorden. En av dem er Ingerdstrand som er stappfull av badegjester om sommeren. Ut på sensommeren er det dog kun de mest hardcore gutter som kaster seg i bølgen blå. Denne herlige gjengen møtte jeg i kveld. Jeg fikk lov å ta et par bilder av dem.

Himmelen var helt fantastisk i kveld, perfekt til landskapsbilder, men også til litt dramatiske portretter. Jeg skulle ha hatt blits med, men uten ble det kanskje enda mere rått, døm selv :)

Full Screen Slideshow... a must ;)

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Dramatiske stup i kvelden

Jeg var ikke den eneste med kamera på Ingjerdstrand denne kvelden, takk til Tai Vu for dette foto :)

Dramatiske stup i kvelden