Real life photography blog Feed

Tordenskiold

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:47:18 +0200

I had the privilege to photograph "The days of Tordenskiold 2008" in Fredrikshavn a couple of weeks ago. It 's a Scandinavian festival in remembrance of the great Nordic war between Denmark, Norway and Sweden early 1700. The war came to an abrupt end in november 1718 when the swedish warrior king Karl XII was shot outside Frederikstens Castle in Norway. And since the festival takes place in Denmark the danish navy hero Peter Wessel more known as Tordenskiold is the star in the huge play that are given every evening of the festival. It's an experience you don't want to miss if you are in Denmark during the festival. This year we saw Terje Vigan Anderson Hansen as Tordenskiold. As the Danish King Fredrik IV we saw Peter Mygind, one of Denmarks most famous and well liked actors. For three days the harbor in Fredrikshavn is occupied by people dressed as they did back then and it is a real adventure to walk among them. It's very easy to get swept away by the wings of history and for a while accept that the year is no longer 2008 but 1717. For those interessed here is a link to the official website of www.tordenskiold.dk I want to congratulate all of the people behind "Tordenskiolds dage" for an immense effort of bringing together all the props and equipment to make these three days a true adventure. I really love my work as a photographer, and a festival like this is absolutely a true joy to attend and I can't wait until next year... I already have some great ideas for how to capture the spirit of the festival. I just love photographing happy people involved in something they really enjoy. Below you can see a couple of shots from the festival and by clicking here you can see all of the more than 400 images I took during the festival. There are also a few on my website at www.reallifephoto.dk under the galleries and there you can see them in a bigger format.

What's on your mind?

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:43:54 +0200

Fie, I wait impatiently for the day when you can tell me , what's on your mind. The day that we can start to really talk, not just the short words when we point at this and that, I do charish those conversations to, but when my eyes meet yours I become so curious as to what you think of the world. Tell me soon...

Children are so much fun

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:05:29 +0200

I just love children and their spontaneous way of discovering the world. The way they look at everything with endless curiosity. And seeing our daughter growing and develop every day is the best thing I know. Last wednesday I took a day off and spent the day at her "job", taking some pictures of her and her friends. The parents of the children on these images have given me permission to publish the photos. For the parents that I haven't talked to: There are many photos from the day and you can contact me if you are interested in seeing all of them. Just fill in the form on my website. The form is in the contact section and you can find my website by clicking here . As I am specialized in real life photography none of these images are staged and there is no posing. I don't tell people what to do or how to act. Everything is real life moments. And images like these are what makes the perfect memories. Everything is genuine and true, real feelings and interaction between the kids makes for the best photos. Here are some of the images from the day.

finding the lines

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:41:58 +0200

As those of you who follow this blog knows, one of my hobbies is cars. I was in Ribe at the classic car show a while ago and there I took some images just for myself and because I like to find new and not so obvious angles when it comes to car photography. Powermeet in Västerås, Sweden is held this weekend but unfortunately I don't have the time to visit this time, maybe next year. For anybody who can find the time should go there for a show worth seeing. It's the one of the absolutely biggest, if not the biggest, American car show in the world with moore than ten tousand cars participating. Most of them with V8 engines so you can imagine that it sounds like thunder even if there is a clear blue sky... Here is the beuatiful shapes of an old Chevrolet Corvette.

Last school party in Jernvedlund

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:28:41 +0200

As in many schools in many small country villages in Denmark, Jernvedlund School was shut down by politicians who rarely thinks longer than their nose goes...( swedish expression, not sure how well it translates but I use anyway).

Closing the school is a sure and efficient way to kill the whole village since there will be no more families with children moving there. Rather, those who live there moves away...

Sorry for the ranting...

I spent the whole afternoon and evening there to capture the spirit of the event.
There were lots of people who said godbye to their beloved school and I have well over 500 really good images for you to look at. Click here or follow the link in the right column.
If you have a slow connection it can take a while to load the page, I can only ask for your patience...

Thank you,

Torben & Birgitte

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:10:11 +0200

A couple of weeks ago I had a real life session with Torben and Birgitte and their wonderful family. We got some really nice shots for them in their absolutely beautiful garden.The garden has kind of different rooms in it, and it is really amazing.I really enjoy shooting these kinds of real life- family sessions because I just love to see families interact and have fun toghether. You can really see how much they love each other and how important they are for one and other. Here are some of the real life portraits from the session: This blog doesn't permit me to show larger images than this, but you are welcome to look at the photos in a larger format on my website at: www.reallifephoto.dk Go to the galleries section and choose real life- portraits.

New home

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:15:50 +0200

The past few weeks have been crazy busy... We moved from our home near Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark to our new home just south of Skagen in the most northern part of Denmark. Skagen is world famous for it's light and for the painters P.S. Krøyer and Michael and Anna Ancher among others who lived and created their famous art here in the late 1800's to early 1900's. Being a photographer, this is heaven, the light is absolutely magical and the beaches are really wide and goes on for ever and ever. My wife has lots of family here and I have always loved to live close to the sea. It's really strange that we haven't moved here earlier... Well now we live here and I look forward to capture new photos here in the Land of Light. Actually, in september 2007 I was here when Lene and Tommy got married. I was really honored to be at their beautiful wedding and to be part of that special day in their lifes. I was working for 16 hours that day and delivered 283 great photos to tell the story of their wedding day. I met Lene's father the other day and he told me that Lene and Tommy is looking forward to meet me again and he said that I should go to their house and see them, so I think I will do just that, really soon. Their wedding were so fun and filled with joy, it will be good to meet them again. Here are some of the photos from the wedding.

Why Real Life Photography

Sat, 24 May 2008 10:32:35 +0200

(The explanation comes in the text... even if it seem strange to start the post about cars) Besides photography I like cars, I'm certainly not fanatic about it. But I really like cars, preferably muscle cars. The sound of a V8 engine wether on idle or roaring when revved is music to my ears. I have a Chevy G20 Van with a 6.2L V8 Diesel engine. It's right now a mess, or rather a project. There is lots of rust and other things that needs to be taken care of. Right now I have a friend that is looking into exactly what needs to be done to get it up and running. I'm not much of a mechanic even though I would like to know how to do that kind of stuff. But I do know how to make a car interior. How is that you might ask, and the reason is that in the year of 2000 after many, hard years of stress, working full time as a staff photographer for the local newspaper and freelancing for other newspapers the other 16 hours of the day, I was considering a change of career and took an education to become an auto upholsterer. That choice is the best I could have made at the time because it let me stop and think about my life and what I really wanted to do with my time. To make a long story short, I just needed some time off to recharge my batteries. I also met my beautiful wife during that education and now we have Fie our wonderful daughter, she is full of life and energy. Actually it was when she was borne on april 11th a year ago, that all my passion for photography returned. It felt as if I was born again and this time I know what to do with my time. I have a passion for making great images of people. Families, children and their life together. People marrying and starting new families. Photographs of real Life. Thus OSCARSSON- real life photography. I still do the occasional car interior but more for the fun of it and not as a career. This is maybe a good topic for a later post. This is Fie the morning after she was born. She had lots of beautiful hair and she never lost it as some babies do.

New hobby

Fri, 23 May 2008 22:41:30 +0200

I know, it's sounds a bit weird to be complaining about not having the time to blog and then find a new hobby...But I think that this will help me taking the time for blogging to. I love images and photography in almost any form, though my professional style is mostly a photo journalistic approach. But now I have started to make some art for myself with HDR-photos just for the fun of it. The reason is that I really like the look of HDR-images when done tastefully. They are almost everywhere and some say that the trend will pass.Of course it will, like all trends, but I find the best HDR-photos to be true work of art. And I have fun doing them at the same time that I learn something new, which I enjoy immensely. Edited to add: Actually I don't think that HDR-photography is a phenomena that will pass but maybe the kind of detail enhanced pictures like the one below will become less popular after a while and then again, maybe not. Because of the possibilities as an art form it might actually become bigger. And regarding the actual HDR-process, I would say that the technique is all ready beginning to be build in to the cameras which all the time gets higher dynamic range. In the future we might not need multiple exposures to tone map, the cameras will maybe have enough dynamic range and/or computer capability to capture it and process it all in one shot. The image above is just an early test but it clearly shows the potential of HDR. I also have some ideas for how to incorporate HDR into my work in the future. But that will be addressed in a coming post. For those interested in, and who are not familiar with the concept of HDR here is a short introduction: HDR or High Dynamic Range is a way to capture much more detail in a given subject by multiple exposures melted together into one single image. By doing this you are able to capture everything between the brightest highlights and the darkest shadows in a scene. Where the dynamic range otherwise would be much to big to be captured in one exposure. By merging the images together and using a software specialized for HDR imaging, it is possible to get everything into one image and the result is something different than we are used to see. With the HDR-technique it is possible to make an image appear to be an illustration or a drawing more than a photo and maybe that is what fascinates me. Since I was a child I always have had images in my head, knowing exactly what I wanted them to look like but never managed to draw them the way I saw them in my mind. Photography has helped me realize my inner visions and now there is another tool for me to get my creativity flooding. Life is great and as my old mentor once said: -You learn something new everyday. I try to do just that and I am inspired by the way he approaches photography, always curious and wanting to learn new things. Hey, this blogging thing is really fun, I think I'll have problems keeping the posts short...

Time for blogging...?

Tue, 20 May 2008 20:59:24 +0200

Well, it turns out that I'm not that a good blogger..! It's not that I don't want to, I really like the idea of publishing my work for everyone to see.It's more of a time issue, I really wonder how people find time to blog. If the blog is to be relevant you have to blog often and have topics that are interesting enough for people to come back to read at least a couple of times a week. And since this is a photographer's blog I assume people want to see photographs on the blog. For me it's really hard to find the time to blog, First I have to find time after a totally crazy busy day and then find a topic and prepare photos to go with it... But I WANT TO BLOG, so I'll just try harder and maybe all posts doesn't have to contain photos... So now I'm off to do some more work before bed time and tomorrow a new beautiful blog day begins...! See you,