September 22, 2016

What models must endure

I truly believe that photographers are often very selfish, stubborn and are fixed to their own beliefs.
And, of course that description is most certainly true when it comes to myself too.
Ideas that very rarely are thought through is «forced» upon the model and very seldom they protest …

It seemed like a good idea … Model: Grethe

Models are girls who really want to be photographed.
In fact, the best of them want it so much that they become a part of the process, not only as models but as participants. Without you noticing they develop and improve the idea you are working with.

Wet hair, my favorite … Model: Kari

That’s why they don’t protest when you ask them to stick their head under water although they have just been to their hairdresser and paid a lot of money for the way they look.
And try to get their body to move into positions which really hurts.

“The picture with the finger” Model: Heidi

Afterwards they are much more pleased with the result than you.
Just because you are already working with something new …

(The last picture, the one «with the finger», has been used on this blog before but it links to a blog that don’t exist anymore)

July 13, 2016July 13, 2016

Changes

You may already have noticed that my site has changed its name from “My Portfolio” to “Retired, but still not dead!”.
It was a necessary change, most of my pictures are made a long time ago (except for the digital art work), and I like my “new” name better. Somehow it sounds better and feel more right for me.
I just passed 63 years and nearly all my photographs today is about food or my blog “den2bloggen” (the second blog).

Meanwhile, here is a photo from the book about AnneGrethe. The title is still not set.

“My Portfolio” has not been updated for a while, the time has not been “on my side”.
I have been to busy and to occupied with digitizing black and white negatives.
It may not come as a surprise, but I am working on a book with pictures of my “favorite model”, AnneGrethe Fuller, who sadly passed away many years ago.

I want to make a book as a tribute to her and I had set a date for release which I now see that I will not manage to keep.
First I had to wait nearly three months for more negative envelopes and then I had a minor accident which lead to more delay. That’s why I am working hard now to at least get the book out before December this year.

It will be published on my own company
“CheapChip Publishing” and it will be an Ebook.
Hopefully it will appear in a printed version later …

May 23, 2016

Holidays In The Sun

Early Seventies Britain was a very depressing place. It was completely run-down with trash on the streets, and total unemployment—just about everybody was on strike. Everybody was brought up with an education system that told you point blank that if you came from the wrong side of the tracks…then you had no hope in hell and no career prospects at all. Out of that came pretentious moi and the Sex Pistols and then a whole bunch of copycat wankers after us.
(From Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Pistols – note 26)

Punk Me!

I was a Pistols fan right from the beginning.

Many of my friends thought they were crap but when listening to the lyrics you understood that this was more than words. This was not meaningless howling like the Norwegian punk bands where up to. It was highly political lyrics and I can fully understand why the English society was scared and afraid.
After a long time were rock music became more and more pop and entertainment, Sex Pistols changed the music scene from the start. In the long run they also changed rock music for ever.
I think I was one of the first who actually bought a Pistols record in a record shop here in Bergen. It was “God save the Queen” and the owner of the shop tried to persuade me to NOT buy it …

It was obvious that the music had a strong influence on my pictures, two of them taken at the time (1977), is shown here.

“Punk City”, the name is meant to be a joke …

Funny though, the picture “Punk City” is shot where Bergen later planned to build “Bergen City” – a financial centre. Then the crack came in 1987 and just part of “the new city” was buildt.
Today they have teared down the “hart” of this stupid idea and started building what will become “Bergen Media City”.
The times are really changing.
I have a video “There will always be an England” and when I am alone I often open a beer, put on the video, turn up the volume and really enjoy the feeling of the music.

My favorite is “Holidays in the sun” and I am sure that my neighbors love it too …

Model: Mona R.I.P.