Flash photography presentation at Pan

The first slide in my presentation featured Linlin Wang. From a recent photo session where I worked very closely with Petri Olderhvit.

I had a very fun evening at the PAN Photo Club yesterday. I had been invited to hold a presentation on small flash photography.

I had been invited by Jan Thorkilsson, the chairman of PAN, because Jan had seen me present at the Partille Photo Club earlier this year.

It was great fun. I like to present, and I love when it spawns a lively discussion afterwards. We talked a lot about how to get started with small flash, and getting over that initial wave of flash induced panic.

I also did a practical demonstration, shooting with one and two flashes, speed grid and gels.

We talked a lot, not just about flash photography, but also about photography culture. For example, I mentioned all the models, artists, and other people I showed pictures of, by name:

Linlin Wang
Victoria Vesterlund
Therese Ekblad (Modell Matheka)
My Hesser
Ida Stranne
Johan Wikström
Anna Mattisson
Daniel Eliasson
Géza Pályi
Sana Sakura
Lotta Odelberg

I also made a point of mentioning Petri Olderhvit and Julia Reinhart, the photographers I worked with while shooting some of the photos.

I did this partly to remind everyone, including myself, that all the photos I showed are collaborative works. I work with human beings, some I have met only once, others a couple of times, some are close friends.

From a practical point of view, the more people who know that Victoria, Therese, and My are models, that Johan Wikström plays in the rock band Mays Hounds, that Anna and Lotta are firedancers, and that Sana is a butoh dancer and choreographer, the greater the probability that they get paying gigs.

Of course, the more paying gigs they get, the greater the probability that they will mention me, Petri, and Julia to people who might want our services.

Taking it a step further, if we help each other out in this way, it will strengthen the Gothenburg Photo Meetup network most of us are members of.

So, what started as a discussion about flash photography, evolved into a discussion about collaboration, and from there we went on to discussing organizational structure. From the point of view of any traditional organization, whether it be a photo club or a business, a network organization like Photo Meetup looks like a crazy mess, except, of course that it works very well.

I am passionate about both photography, and organization, so I was pretty much in heaven. I think the PAN people enjoyed it too.

Photo Caricatures

Julia Reinhart

During a recent photo shoot I decided to make a few caricature shots of my friends. Of course, I could not ask them to pose for caricature photos without doing it myself, so I asked Julia Reinhart to take a photo of me.

Henrik Mårtensson (Photographer: Julia Reinhart)

Making photos like this is quite easy. I have used the various liquify tools in Pixelmator. Photoshop, The gimp, and other apps have similar tools.

Petri Olderhvit

My main tool was Warp, but I also used Bump, Pinch, and Twirl to good effect.

It is best to avoid stretching or otherwise enlarging parts of a face too much. The face will stretch, but will also loose texture.

A caricature works best when you exaggerate what is already there. Ask your subjects to make the weirdest facial expressions they can come up with, and work from there.

I had a lot of fun making these, and they certainly will not be my last caricature photos.