This is fun. This week I've been to Copenhagen twice, Monday to shoot with the lovely Sara Scarlet (those shots are live now), and yesterday with the lovely Izabella.
And in an hour I'm picking up another lovely model named Sigrid, for another shoot.
The last two will probably be up later in the upcoming week.
Yeah, I know, it's not really about photography. Well, it has a camera, there you go.
I'm not gonna go into depths about the features of the phone with this post, there are plenty of other places to look for that. I'm just gonna say how ridiculous I think this release is.
I've got the iPhone 6 myself. It's awesome and easily the best phone I've ever had. It's the 6, not even the 6s, since no one needs to upgrade as soon as something new comes out. I've had the iPhone 6 since February 2015 and it looks and feels like it's brand new.
But the iPhone 7 just seem stupid. For example, Apple took away the 3,5mm headphone jack. How retarded is that? Sure, I've got a pair of Sennheiser Momentum II Bluetooth headphones with my iPhone 6, but I don't always use them, sometimes I use my Klipsch in-ear headphones instead since they're smaller and because of that, easier to bring and store. So now people need to use an adapter to be able to use their nice (not wireless) headphones which is retarded. And you can't charge the phone while listening to music while using that adapter, that is even more retarded.
I've seen a few parody videos about the iPhone 7 and they hit the spot and I hope that Tim Cook and those other guys at Apple get the message. Sure, iPhone 7 is already sold out since people are stupid and can't stop consuming even with flaws like this. And there are other things that Apple brings up as innovations even if they're not really innovations. But Apple are masters at selling stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I really like Apple and what they do. And like I said, my iPhone 6 is the best phone I've ever had. I've had a couple of Android phones and I have an Android phone at work, are they total crap? Of course not, but I'm personally never going back to Android again.
And my 27" 5k iMac is easiest the best computer I've ever had and my 13" MacBook Pro the best laptop I've ever had and I'm never going back to PC again. But is everything Apple puts out total awesomeness? Of course not.
A conclusion to this, well I'm not buying the iPhone 7 since it's a stupid release. The iPhone 8 that will come next year is predicted to actually be a huge upgrade. Among other things there will be a new innovation called "the 3,5mm headphone jack" and if something happens with my iPhone 6, I might buy the iPhone 8 if I need to, even if it would end up a bit retarded.
I've got the iPhone 7. Lol
I know and I still believe that it was a stupid move to take a way the 3,5mm jack for example, though myself I bought the totally awesome but ridiculously priced Klipsch X12 Neckband Bluetooth in-ear headphones already to use with my iPhone 6, so it isn't a problem for me, but most people still use regular wired headphones so it sucks that they need an adapter which is not a step forward.
And if I hadn't ruined my iPhone 6 on my latest London trip, I would not have bought the iPhone 7, that is a fact. I would have waited for an iPhone 8 instead. Now I'll wait for an iPhone 9 or 10 or something...
I look at a lot of model/portrait photos. I'm a member of sites like ModelMayhem and PurplePort for example and there are many photos to look at, specially at PurplePort.
I see many that are lit very well or with great natural which is even better, composed well and with a beautiful and/or interesting model. And it looks amazing on a thumbnail but when it's looked at in full size, it's retouched beyond infinity. The model doesn't have a single wrinkle, line, freckle or pore, just a smoothed out plastic face. This is very common but why in the actual fuck do people do this?
On a place like PurplePort you can give "love" to photos and it has stopped me countless times from giving any "love" since I find it hideous when photographers/retouchers do this. And it's not only for headshots, it's for full body nude shots for example. And not even nudes either, any shots with skin showing. There's nothing natural looking about it and it totally puts me off if it's done like that.
Yes, I think it's okay to do it a tiny tiny bit, I do that myself sometimes, but only if something is really disturbing so to speak. Or if the model had a pimple that day and she feels bad about it, sure I would get rid of it in post, but I would never smooth someone out completely and take away their natural look and beauty. Nope, never. And I would like to think that it's offensive to the model, it's like "you're not good enough and I'll reconstruct your looks".
I know, it's more or less the "industry standard" but it's fucked up and I hate it, but I know that many people love these type of photos, I don't understand why but we're all different with different tastes. I guess that it's the same type of people who think that over saturated photos, with nearly black unnaturally looking clouds, with huge amount of halos around edges are just "wow" and "beautiful".
The same people might probably not like my photos, well people might not like them in general, I don't know, they might not be retouched, edited and polished enough, but that's how I do it. Of course I edit photos, but I don't retouch them, maybe that's the difference. I am a pretty heavy user of VSCO film presets for example. Presets that I alter quite heavily to make them my own and use for all images to give them a certain look that I like. But still, I don't turn my models into aliens. I shoot the models that I shoot because I think they're beautiful the way they are.
I've posted a few shots of this cool place before in my cityscape section, since I visited this cool place last year while in London. This time I walked around a little bit more and it's an interesting place. The brutalist architecture is well, brutal in a way and the feeling while walking around is that it's both modern, and kinda old-ish, not ancient old, more dated and stuck in the 60's old.
Still it's a fascinating place and here are a few shots.
So I'm currently doing some changes here on the website.
I've lately been experiencing some lagging while opening galleries when it's been loading the content and it's annoying and a couple of friends have pointed it out as well while having a look on my website. I've also been experiencing it while I've been updating my galleries and to be able to do that, I had to change plan and go for a new one more than twice the price, which kinda sucks.
But I've moved things around a bit, creating sub galleries under the portraits, nudes galleries for each model, and seascape/landscape/waterscape galleries and now simply call those nature.
It helped in the galleries with less photos but not so much the ones that are image heavy, so I might have to get in touch with Squarespace and complain a bit since I now pay much more for this website. But I still like it and it's very nice to work with and I'm not so keen on doing coding and shit by myself since I'm not up to date with that. I once could do some html coding, but that was back in the day and now I'm just lost and not very interested in doing it either.
The last days I've also been editing photos of the lovely Diviana who I spent a day shooting nudes in the forest. I'll be done today and will probably be posting some new nudes tomorrow.
When I'm done with the nudes, I'll be editing some new photos I took with Hanna and they're probably the coolest ones we've done so far. I'll probably be posting these tomorrow as well.
Yeah, that's it.
At least many Swedish photographers (since this is something that I've probably seen mostly in Swedish) are ridiculous, or stupid or whatever to call them.
Or well, at least a lot of the ones on different Swedish Facebook forums (yeah, Facebook, the fountain of knowledge). I find it ridiculous and plainly stupid that so many use the term "fotograf" (photographer in English) in their names. As if putting the word "photographer" either at the beginning or in the middle of your name makes you look so awesome and as if you really know what you're doing or saying. No retard, it makes you look stupid and desperate.
By profession, I'm an industrial electrician. I don't call myself "Industrial electrician Peter Engdahl" on Facebook or anywhere else, since it's stupid. And it would make me look desperate and insecure. I'm a photographer as well, a hobbyist, enthusiast, amateur, call it what you want but not by profession. And I don't feel the need to call myself that either. If someone ask me while I'm out doing photography, I say yes, I am a photographer since I'm obviously doing photography and by the very meaning of that, I am a photographer. But at the same time I don't go around calling myself a photographer either and I'll add that I'm not a professional either, when being asked.
It's been discussed so many times and some people say that you shouldn't call yourself a photographer at all if you're not doing it as a profession. That is also bullshit. The title "photographer" is not legally protected, like a lawyer or a doctor and you don't need a specific education and graduation to do photography, as you have to for being a lawyer, doctor OR electrician for that matter.
Having that said, back to what I started ranting about..
Making the word "photographer" as part of your online name on social networking sites like Facebook makes you look stupid and desperate. And many people are stupid and desperate, since they so desperately want to be photographers, but making it a part of your name doesn't make it more real than it actually is. And it doesn't weigh in heavier in discussions like some people think and it's not like in general, professional photographers are better than amateurs (or what ever to call us). There's a big spectra of knowledge and skill on either side and many professional photographers are crazy talented and are able to get things done when there's a deadline for example, as many amateurs are. And many are less on both sides as well. And as an amateur photographer you can be nice, "professional" and awesome to work with, and you can be a fucking asshole professional photographer, or vice versa. You get the idea.
Still the use of "photographer" in your online name, why? Yeah, you did a wedding for your cousin that gave you gas (petrol) money and you shot your sister's drooling kids and she bought you an ice-cream for that. Now you're a "photographer" since you have an income from your shots. Awesome. Or you shoot really shitty wedding photos and still take ridiculous amounts of cash for it from clueless couples (don't get me wrong, all couples about to get married are definitely not clueless), and still you go on to forums, on Facebook, to ask how to get the lighting right, or what aperture to use at certain scenarios. Yeah, you're such a pro...
The real pro photographers don't spend their time asking questions online on how to perform tasks within their profession, they just do them from knowledge collected from, education, experience and real trial and error. There are so many wannabe pro's within the photography "community" that it's not even funny. I'm not one of them and I will never be. I've done a few jobs for pay, and I might do more but I haven't got "photographer" in my name on Facebook. And I'm also doing my job every day as an electrician and I'm not going on any forums on Facebook for that (that would be embarrassing) and like I said, I haven't got "industrial electrician" in my name either.
End of rant...
...and pre-ordered the Fujifilm X-T2.
And used a 50% off for the battery grip, since I shoot a lot of portraits these days. Based on what I've been reading about people's experiences with the camera, it seems like it is undoubtedly better than the X-T1 which still is in most cases a great camera that I use for nearly everything these days. And the X-T1 won't get retired either, it'll be with me either as simply a backup or as a second body with another lens mounted for quick changes (probably the last).
Sure, it's not gonna be perfect, there are still flaws on it. I'm still annoyed about the 4K video for example. Just made it unnecessarily expensive. And just take a look at it. It's obviously a still camera for photographers, not a video camera for videographers. And there are other things as well that I'm not content with, but it's still gonna be better in several ways.
I have no idea of when it'll be arriving, officially in September, but who knows when it'll be here in Sweden. But it would be cool if it came in the beginning of September since I have a shoot with Sara Scarlet in September. Oh well, we'll see. I will get back on it when I've tried it out for a while.
That stands for London Film and Comic Con, which I attended one and a half week ago.
It was a pretty cool experience, since I've never been to one before, and there's an even bigger one apparently (Anna Quinn told me so) at the end of May, with more of everything, including cosplayers, so I guess I'll have to go for the last week of May next year instead of first week.
It was hard to get any decent shots of cosplayers, since there was crap backgrounds and other people everywhere, but here are a few shots anyways.
So, yesterday was my last full day in London for this visit. As usual it didn't turn out as planned (nothing never does). I had a run in the city, having a look at a couple of things in a few stores (didn't buy anything) and had some food. While I was about to get on the Piccadilly Line back to my hotel for a chill (and for resting my blistered feet), at Holborn, it started to rain.
That rain kept on going for the rest of the afternoon and the whole evening, spoiling my plans of grabbing some shots of The Shard at its base (London Bridge Station) and some evening/night shots at the Isle of Dogs. At the same time, I could give my feet a rest and maybe I can walk the rest of the day while travelling back to Sweden.
It's been a pretty good trip, not as productive as hoped for, since I didn't find myself getting any good street shots, but had three nice shoots with Beth, Chloe and Lauren. And it was nice to catch up a little with Anna Quinn again and also to meet Ben and the others while doing the street photographer meet up.
So thanks London, see you soon.
Yesterday I went to London Film and Comic Con, held at Olympia, London.
Quite a lot of people, but heard that it had been packed on Saturday, so was glad that I went on Sunday instead. One of the reasons to go there was to have a look at what it was like, be able to shoot some cosplayers in costumes, and the other reason to go on Sunday was to catch up with Anna Quinn, the model I shot with in Copenhagen in the end of June.
I met Anna and we chatted a little bit and she was dressed as HellBoy, and looked awesome.
I saw quite a lot of cosplayers dressed up in different costumes, some that I recognised and some I didn't. And with quite a large difference in quality and time/money put into their costumes. it was fun though, but I was pretty tired after the visit. I will post some more photos here. Now here comes one of Anna/HellBoy.
Went on my last model shoot for this visit yesterday, with the lovely Lauren.
This was the first time we shot together, but it went rather well and we might be able to do it again on my next visit which I don't know when it will be, maybe in the spring of 2017.
Lauren is a nice and easy going person and I had a nice afternoon/evening and while two of our locations didn't work out pretty much because they were so overcrowded with people, it was still good.
As with my other shoots, I'm gonna post process the shots while I'm back home, but here is one test shot though.
Had an interesting model shoot with the lovely Chloe yesterday. It took us south of the Thames and to Nunhead Cemetery, one of the Magnificent Seven, cemeteries built in the 1830's-1840's.
We were running a little bit late and when we got to Nunhead station, it started raining. Awesome. We didn't explore as much as we wanted both because of the weather even if it cleared up and stopped raining after a little while, but also that we were running a bit late.
After that we went to the more multi cultural East London and to the wonderful part called Hackney. Hackney has been a bit gentrified as I've heard but while sitting on the overground train it looked kinda shit around the area and it hasn't got the best reputation. We were not shooting in the street, but at a rather nice hotel next to Hackney Central station.
I got back my to hotel after midnight so it was a long day, but we got some nice shots. And here's a quick edit and preview of one of them.
So been doing a little bit of this and little bit of that the last couple of days..
On day 5 I was supposed to have done a model shoot, but unfortunately my model had to cancel since she was covered in heat rashes. Did not look very nice, judging from the photos of her body that she sent me and I hope you'll get better soon.
Yesterday I did do a model shoot with the lovely Beth Smith in Epping Forest. Very nice place and model and I had a good time and will post process the photos when I'm back in Sweden. Here's just a test I did.
And today I'm off to do another model shoot.
Third day in a really hot London.
Been to the Barbican Estate once before and it's really cool and I had to go there and have a second look.
After sweating for a few hours, stopping by at a steakhouse for a healthy pile of tasty meat, I got back to my hotel in the late afternoon, had a shower to cool off and thought that I should stretch out on the bed in the cool air of the A/C before going out to shoot some cityscapes in the blue hour. Big mistake. I fell asleep and missed all of that. Awesome...
Yesterday I went on my first photography meet up with some local street photographers. We went for the interesting Shoreditch and Brick Lane area. Unfortunately it was a bit too crowded and I found it hard getting anything interesting at all and while back at my hotel looking at the shots, nearly all of them went in the bin since they were pure garbage.
Though it was a nice experience and the social part was great, I think I prefer doing the actual street photography on my own. But I met some nice people and had some good conversations during the photo walk and when we were done with it, we ended up for a couple of hours at a pub called Hamilton Hall just outside of Liverpool Street station, for some more conversations and refreshments.
I'd do another meet up with this group if I get the opportunity again while being in London (and having a free schedule), because it was nice meeting some new people with the same interest, and the actual photography bit is not really the main feature.
Just a little update.
I arrived in a really hot London yesterday afternoon. After a nice shower and some chill-out time in the wonders of human engineering (A/C in my hotel room) I went to Piccadilly Circus, had some awesome food at Jamie Oliver's Diner and walked around in SoHo and around Piccadilly Circus before going back to the hotel for the night.
On the schedule for today is a meet up with some local street photographers in Shoreditch/Brick Lane for some street shooting. And after that, we'll see. :) I just hope the temperature will fall a bit...
Btw, this guy was shouting like a lunatic, with his "Repent ye" sign. The religious ones are weird.
This is interesting.
Squarespace has got a built in tool called Analytics, it's also an app for my iPhone and iPad (there's probably one for Android too), that gives me statistics of how many search hits, visits and what content that is mostly watched/read.
For quite a while, my blog post about The Angry Photographer has been the most popular thing and still is and up until a week ago things like my review of the Fujinon XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR has been on and off in second place together with my Seascapes or Portraits. But now, my new category Nudes has taken second place of most visited/watched content.
I'm not surprised.
Naked women are interesting. Naked women are beautiful. Most women in general are beautiful, naked or not. I'm new to this and I've only shot two women nude (sure I've maybe shot some intimate stuff with girlfriends, not intended for the public, lol) and they're both beautiful, so yeah, I'm not surprised that it's a popular content of my website.
And that's cool. I'm not shooting nudes, well I'm not doing any type of photography (nudes are not my main thing) for anyone else than myself OR the one I'm shooting, BUT if other people find it interesting, beautiful, not so beautiful or whatever, that's cool. If not, I wouldn't even have this website and I wouldn't post any photographs here.
And when it comes to nude photography, again it's not my main thing, but I like it and I do want to shoot more. And no, it's not for perving on beautiful naked women, it's for the art and photography perspective. And I know, I'm not the best photographer, but I'm very serious about this and I want to always get better.
And I think I've written about this before, but I like the contrasts between nature's shapes and colours and the female form and skin tones. Or for the contrasts between abandoned structures and the female form and skin tones. I have quite a few ideas, and I'd like to experiment with different techniques. Am I the only one? Definitely not, lots of others do this, but I want to do it myself, my way. Do I have a certain style yet? No, I don't think so, since I've just started doing this, but hopefully I can develop one with time. The hardest bit is to find models and good locations to shoot, but hopefully I can expand this part of my photography much further.
Canon EOS 5D MkIII w/ Lensbaby Composer Pro + Lensbaby Pinhole/Zoneplate optics
So the successor to Fujifilm's X-T1 was officially announced on the 7th of July, and here are some thoughts about some of the specs.
Again, these are thoughts about what I’ve read about the X-T2. I'm not an official X-photographer so I haven't been able to test it. In a way this camera is a bit exciting, in another it’s kinda meh, but still it’s the most exciting news this year from Fujifilm, since the X-PRO2 was and still is a totally uninteresting camera for me.
So, let's go.
24,3 MP X-Trans CMOS III sensor. This is good and no surprise. It's supposed to be quite a bit improved, not only does it have 50% more pixels, but dynamic range is supposed to be even better.
X Processor Pro which handles operation, that will fasten things up and make it feel quicker. And with a new autofocus system with up to 325 autofocus points and about 40% of the imaging area has phase detection points. This leads to 8 fps with mechanical and 14 fps with electronic shutter in normal mode and 11 fps with mechanical shutter in boost mode with the new battery grip. Also pretty good news, but I’ll see if it’s actually any good when the camera actually is on the market. Don't know how useful that 14 fps with an electronic shutter, since I guess it's meant for moving targets and I don't know if they have worked around the rolling shutter problem with moving targets. I guess it'll get noticed when people are able to buy it.
They put that little joystick the came on the X-PRO2 on it as well. Not a surprise either, but it's good and will probably make moving and selecting autofocus point easier and faster. Something that I've been missing from my Canon DSLRs
New EVF, 2.36 million dot OLED, with a refresh rate of 60 fps in normal mode and 100 fps in boost mode. This is also really nice and will make the already excellent EVF even better.
ISO, well I have to see it for myself. It’s supposed to be improved since the ISO capabilities of the X-T1 left a lot to wish for, but maybe it’s better now.
Flash capabilities is supposed to have been improved and that’s good. Not sure how much though. High Speed Sync for example? Don't think it has it.
So, that's mostly pretty good things, and there are more specs, but read about them somewhere else, these were things that I felt like commenting on and these are positive things. Now to one major disappointment.
4K video? WTF Fujifilm!?! Why? If people wants to shoot video, buy a fucking video camera! This was rather disappointing, but still I’m not surprised. But it sucks. Fujifilm should have ditched video capabilities all together and just concentrated on making this an even better still camera, (since there are still things that needed to be improved on this release), not a fucking camcorder! A big minus in my book. 4K video just made it a lot more expensive. It's about 50% more expensive than the X-T1 was/is. That's a major raise in price. Yes, I can afford anyways, but still, others might be struggling.
But still I'm gonna buy this camera. Of course I am. But I’m gonna try and keep it cool until the problems that all first batches of cameras have, are gone. I’m not even sure when it will be available in stores...
I've been writing about some problems with Adobe Creative Cloud app and Lightroom before.
Today I thought I should try and remove the app, and re-install it. That fucked everything up. I tried to use Creative Cloud uninstaller and then also Adobe's Cleaner Tool and remove everything. Did not work that well and while trying to install the Creative Cloud app it did not work at all.
The positive thing was actually Adobe's customer support. I used their chat and a nice guy took control over my iMac (as I've read other people been forced to). Never a good feeling getting someone else to control your computer, but it worked out very well, both Lightroom and Photoshop are up and running again and it's all good.
The thing is that I'm still running OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite, and the latest version of the Creative Cloud app only supports OS X 10.11 El Capitan, which it doesn't say or warn you about and since the app automatically tries to update itself = fail. My MacBook Pro came with El Capitan installed and it works flawlessly with with Lightroom/Photoshop. But I haven't upgraded to El Capitan on my iMac, since I also do music on this computer and both my DAW and my audio interface has only recently been totally fine with El Capitan, when it comes to compatabillity and bugs and shit. But I guess that I have to, since it's probably gonna be problems down the road with Adobe, but this time I'm really impressed by their customer support. Hats off.
I'm thinking about separating my portraits and the nude stuff that I have shot and that I am going to shoot in the future.
On Thursday the 23rd I went to Copenhagen to shoot U.K. model Anna Quinn and she was amazing. A super pro model, crazy beautiful and such a sweetheart. I had a great time, and I think she had one too and we had some nice conversations while walking around Christianshavn and shooting. It was awesome and I hope I can catch up with her in London in a few weeks, since we talked about doing that. Her photos are already in my portrait section. Hopefully I'll be able to shoot with Anna again when I return to London not this, but next time in May 2017.
And I am starting to see the light in the tunnel when it comes to editing shots from last weekend. I shot with a Copenhagen based model called Diviana. Also a super awesome model and I think the least shy person I have ever met. We shot in Jægersborg Dyrehave in Klampenborg, just outside of Copenhagen, Denmark on Saturday the 25th. It was a really nice shoot, and Diviana is also really good at what she's doing, beautiful and such a nice person as well. And she was walking around completely naked most of the time and seemed super relaxed about it, which made me feel relaxed as well since I'm not very used to shoot nudes yet, but it was awesome. But it resulted in an crazy amount of photos and I've been working on them every night after work this passed week and all day today and I'll probably have half a day tomorrow as well before I'm done. And we've already talked about shooting together again, and I have a few ideas of expanding what we've already shot and also on some other stuff.
But based on the amount of nude shots I got from this shoot and since I plan on posting quite a few of them, and also since I've got a few nudes from before has made me think that I should separate them into a gallery of their own.
So, maybe tomorrow night or early in next week, I'll be posting these new nude shots in a completely new gallery, probably just named NSFW.