Projects
All rights reserved © Rickard Olausson Photography 2016.
I've slowly been working on some images for this set, which is about mental illnesses and how it feels like to be trapped inside yourself with anxiety. A subject i believe is important to talk about these days. Rest of the images are in the Projects folder under "Neglected Space".
Enjoy, and take care of yourselves. /Rick
And so, we have gotten to the last part os this series. So the last shoot rolled around and this was a big one. I had previously arranged for me and Agnes to borrow some clothes from Stadsteatern (The City Theatre) to borrow some clothes from their amazing wardrobe. My contact there, Håkan Westesson, was kind enough to let me in and borrow some clothes, on the premise that we held the shoot at the theatre, which I couldn't say no to! So we met up with Helene Otterbäck, who is responsible for the vast wardrobe in there and we got to pick whatever we wanted. I owe them big time and I'm super grateful that they let me in there to make my vision come true!
For this shoot I wanted to do something really big, something I'm not really comfortable with. Me and Agnes had this idea from the beginning that we wanted to incorporate dancers into the shot who was dancing around the "main model", or the main character if you will. This idea later morphed into dolls with white masks. So she managed to get a hold of 12 amazing people from her class at Balettakademien. This part made me nervous, because I've never arranged a shoot as big as this before. But for me this is what this project was about, to challenge myself to do something grand! And I just have to say wow... This experience completely blew me away!
We got there an hour before everyone else and started laying out the clothes that we borrowed from both Balettakademien and Stadsteatern, then we set up some lighting and prepped the camera and som angles. The we started work on my main model Lovisa, which took about an hour. Eventually all the extras started pouring in and it was so great to see them getting dressed and making the characters come to life. They looked so amazing in their clothes and everything. I was just circling the room, smiling at what I had managed to put together, taking some process shots along the way. And speaking of process shots, I'd like to share quite a few so here are a whole bunch to feast your eyes upon before I reveal the final result.
The buzz in that room was simply amazing. Before we started the shoot for real I had to line everyone up for a shot to portray how beautiful they all were! I had the biggest smile on my face!
So then we got to work. We tried a few different approaches to how we wanted the shot to be. But I landed in something a bit more darker and sinister than I had originally planned. But that to me was just a good thing. I've worked with Lovisa before so I just let her do her thing based on how I'd described her character beforehand. She did an amazing job as always. Agnes also did such a fantastic job on this shoot, prepping 14 models in just about 2 hours and I am super grateful! All the hard work payed off and I think we managed to create something unique and beautiful. I learned so much from this experience and it's something that I'm going to continue to do. Arrange bigger shoots. Because working with people is such a rewarding experience, and that to me was the best part about all of this.
I later spent a great deal on retouching these images. I estimate that I spent around 25 hours per set for two images. So I'm pretty glad I didn't end up doing five shoots, which I originally planned. So here are the final results, and I have to say, these are my favourites of the three.
All rights reserved © Rickard Olausson Photography 2015.
All rights reserved © Rickard Olausson Photography 2015.
I can't thank everyone involved nearly enough.. I'm so grateful for all the support and for believing in my ideas, for all the help I've gotten along the way and I'm humbled by how much people were willing to engage in my project. It was amazing and I have grown so much as a photographer from this. But this isn't the last from this series, I'm still planning a few more to accompany these three sets. But for now I'll take a well deserved break from this little universe that I've created. Who knows, maybe it can grow into something more?
Huge thanks to the following people who were involved in this shoot:
Agnes Duvander & Balettakademien - Makeup Artist/Styling/Hair/Clothes
Håkan Westesson & Helene Otterbäck at Stadsteatern Göteborg - www.stadsteatern.goteborg.se
Lovisa Ekblad - Model
Adam Svensson, Anna Arvidsson, Matilda Magnewall, Linnea Malmström, Linda Olofsson, Izabell Makiela, Hanna Boquist, Connie Johansson, Sarah Stenberg, Frida Edholm, Vanessa Campodonico & Per-Erik Eriksson - "Dolls"/Model Extras
Simon Johansson - Assistant
Ove Bengtson at Hasselblad - www.hasselblad.com
My teachers Kalle Sanner & Klara Källström - www.fotoskolangbg.se
Götaplatsens Foto for the prints - www.gotaplatsensfoto.se
I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year. I'm sure the new year will bring amazing things!
Cheers / Rickard
Links to parts 1 & 2 - Part 1 - Part 2
So after the last shoot I was feeling pretty confident. It felt nice to have one down and that everything was falling into place. I did all three shoots in less than a week, so it was full steam ahead!
For this shoot I knew I wanted to be outdoors. I had this forest type shot in mind of a girl in a dress walking around with a candelabra looking for something and I wanted it to be really moody. Preferably a grey, foggy day. But I had a realisation once again that I might not be able to get what I was going for in such a short amount of time. So I decided to order some smoke bombs, which I had never used before but had always wanted to try, just in case I wouldn't have any luck with fog, which I didn't. But more on that later.
I first needed to find a suitable location. I talked to quite a few people about where I could bring my vision to life. I had a couple of reference images (again from Pinterest) that I was really inspired by. But since I'm not so familiar with the environment here in Gothenburg just yet I don't actually know about that many good spots. I though long and hard about going to Botaniska Trädgården (The Botanical Gardens) here in the city, but I ultimately decided against it since it would probably involve a lot of walking to get to a proper location there, where I could use the smoke bombs. Also we probably would have to do the makeup and styling on the model on a different location first, which would complicate things since we had a pretty tight schedule that day. Then a classmate of mine, Ellen (who also was my trusty assistant for this shoot) suggested we go have a look at Ramberget, which is a lookout point over Gothenburg and also basically right next to our school. We went there and it didn't take long before I found the perfect spot. Here are a few location scouting shots:
I felt right away that this was the perfect spot to set up my shoot. I settled for this crevice in a slope that would serve as a great backdrop and also would contain the smoke from the smoke bombs and keep it there.
Now that the location was set I was again feeling pretty confident. I found a model, Ragnhild, I got into contact with a few weeks prior and she was really keen to contribute. I hadn't met her before so I was feeling a bit nervous about that. But I really think I found the perfect person to portray. She was already into old dresses and gloomy stuff so I knew it'd be a perfect fit! Since me and Agnes already picked clothes the week before I didn't have to worry about that either. We found some beautiful dresses that we were gonna try.
So then it was time again for another intense day of setting up and everything. The weather was unfortunately really good(!).. So I'm glad I bought the smoke bombs! We got started pretty early since I still wanted to catch some of the light outside and not work in total darkness. I met up with the model, Ragnhild, and off we went to the studio in our school to do the styling and makeup. Agnes had also produced a beautiful wig for this shoot so I was pretty excited about that as well. First she went to work with the makeup and then we moved along to trying on some dresses. And then finally we attached the wig. Process images to follow:
So after a good two hours of makeup and trying on clothes etc. we were finally done and I was feeling really excited! I was once again blown away with the results of Agnes work. So I gathered all my gear and then we headed out to the location. Once we got there we tested some light and I ended up using just the one light. A portable Profoto flash again with a beauty dish (because why not?) and a diffusor to spread the light some more. It was dead cold outside (beginning of december and all) and Ragnhild was a real trooper and didn't complain at all. The wind was just right so the smoke carried down beautifully down the slope. It was perfect! Everything went super smooth except for some focus problems with the Hasselblad. I felt like we had the shot I wanted so I once again rigged for some closeup portraits which also turned out great. Then it was onto the retouching bit, which went smooth enough. They still took some time to edit but I'm happy with how they turned out, so enough rambling, here are the results!
All rights reserved © Rickard Olausson Photography 2015.
Again I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed making them. It was an intense process but I'm happy with the results!
Huge thanks to the following people who were involved in this shoot:
Agnes Duvander & Balettakademien - Makeup Artist/Styling/Wig/Clothes
Ragnhild Olvonsköldhe - Model
Ellen Hamlet - Assistant
Ove Bengtson at Hasselblad - www.hasselblad.com
My teachers Kalle Sanner & Klara Källström - www.fotoskolangbg.se
Götaplatsens Foto for the prints - www.gotaplatsensfoto.se
Stay tuned for part 3!
/Rickard
Link to part 3 - Part 3
I'm just now finishing up my latest project - Ghost Stories, which is my final project I'm doing at the school I'm attending. We're having an exhibition between December 12-17 here in Gothenburg so I made this short teaser video as a glimpse to set the mood for my project.
Since I've done 3 shoots I'm going to be dividing this post into 3 separate parts where I'll be sharing my process as well as the final result. However this first post will be longer one because I'll be explaining some of the early stages of the process. If you're interested in the school then here's the link to it: www.fotoskolangbg.se. It's a 2 year education that focuses on photography as a trade rather than the artform.
Ok, so getting back to the process. I've been mulling over what to do for my final project for the past year and a half, basically since we started. I've changed the direction I wanted to take it so many times, but one thing that remained in my mind was that I wanted to do something that I don't normally do. Something bigger than I'm used to. So I was watching this brilliant tv-show called Penny Dreadful and suddenly realised how much I've always enjoyed victorian clothing and settings as well as rich characters. Combined with a dash of horror and I knew that that was what I wanted to do - Victorian portraits in environments with believable clothing and makeup with a dark and gloomy mood.
I immediately headed over to Pinterest to set up a moodboard. Finding good inspiration wasn't exactly difficult so I landed pretty quickly in something like this:
Worth noting is that I do not own these images, all rights belong to their respective owners.
Whilst looking at all these beautiful pictures I realised pretty quickly I wouldn't be able to pull this project off on my own. So I started thinking about who I should get into contact with that could help me get to where I wanted. I started to look for a makeup artist pretty early and one of my classmates suggested the very talented Agnes Duvander, who does makeup, styling and her own wigs(!). We set up a meeting and she really liked my ideas. I've seen her work prior and knew she was good at what she does. I then started to look for models. I knew I wanted interesting characters rather than just a "pretty face". I already had some people in mind so I got that settled pretty quickly. More on that later.
It got me thinking that I probably wanted the best possible quality out of these pictures. So I worked some of my connections through school and managed to get the opportunity to borrow a Hasselblad H4D with some additional lenses. The people over at Hasselblad are amazing!
So for the first shoot I decided to focus on a location I found a few months ago called Aftonstjärnan (translated The Evening Star), which is an old and beautiful theatre with red drapes and a spotlight. I've been there before and instantly fell in love with it and I knew just the perfect model for it. So my first shoot was with my friend Anton who loves to be on stage and has no problem stepping into the shoes of a character. And he was on board straight away. I called the theatre up and there was absolutely no problem for me to do my shoot there. It felt great at this point.
Then me and Agnes started to look at clothes. We started off with brainstorming a bit and then rummaged through the wardrobe at Balettakademien Göteborg where they have a lot of amazing clothes. I felt like a kid in a candy store in there. So we found some pretty awesome clothes for all the shoots.
Around rolls D-day, and I was feeling excited. Me and Agnes first had a meeting for a later shoot first then headed over to the location to start prepping. I started rigging the lights and tested the lighting for a good while before I was completely satisfied. I tried to use the spotlight that was already there but it was not bright enough and the Profoto flashes overpowered it even on the lowest setting. The Hasselblad is no good on anything over ISO 100 so I decided to try and replicate the spotlight with a snoot. I bought a fog machine (a pretty cheap one) for this shoot so I set that up and it worked really well and added to the atmosphere I was aiming for. I decided to use the snoot as my main light and a bigger soft box as my fill light for the backdrop. For the closeup portraits I used a beauty dish with a modifier in front of it to get a slightly softer spread. So here are some process shots that I did and I'll get to the final result further down.
So there you have some process shots. We had a blast that evening and when I got home and looked at the results I was amazed! That 50 megapixel sensor is truly fantastic! I could really see the difference right away from my Canon 5D mkIII. Not that the 5D is a bad camera, but a medium format sensor with that resolution is just something else.. So then I started retouching, and with these files it sure does take a whole lot longer. But it was a real treat to edit these images and I'm very proud of the results. Both images took around 25 hours to edit. I spent a great amount of time on these pictures and I hope it shows. So without further ado, here are the final results!
All rights reserved © Rickard Olausson Photography 2015.
All rights reserved © Rickard Olausson Photography 2015.
Huge thanks to the following people who were involved in this shoot:
Agnes Duvander & Balettakademien - Makeup Artist/Styling/Assistant
Anton Svensson - Model
Bertil & Conny at Teater Aftonstjärnan - www.aftonstjarnan.se
Ove Bengtson at Hasselblad - www.hasselblad.com
My teachers Kalle Sanner & Klara Källström - www.fotoskolangbg.se
Götaplatsens Foto for the prints - www.gotaplatsensfoto.se
So that's it for part 1, part 2 to follow shortly!
/Rickard
Link to Part 2 - Part 2
© Rickard Olausson Photography 2015. All Rights Reserved.
Sometimes you just have to try something new, and my curiosity drove me towards water droplets. I've always been afraid of water. Drowning is one of my biggest fears in life. I guess there are more ways to drown than just water - work, emotions, what have you? Never stop fighting. It's not worth it.
Anyway, my dear friend Lovisa was amazing during this shoot.. She totally went all in with submerging herself in the water to make this shot as convincing as possible. It turned out great.
Lighting was really simple, just one Speedlite quite close that bounced off the wall. I wanted a fairly dramatic light for this shot. Turned out just like I hoped. End of rant!
© Rickard Olausson Photography 2015.
I've been mulling this project over for quite some time. I finally decided to share some of it here on my website. The thought of this project is to shed some light on mental illnesses and try to translate how it feels through imagery. It can be a very cold, dark and lonely place. That's why I decided to name the project Neglected Space, since it's something a lot of people struggle with today but aren't comfortable talking about.
I've created a new page for just projects like this one. I'll be adding more as soon as new projects spring to mind.
I've also updated the Portraits-section.
