Decadance, No Apologies

Saturday started with the spring cleaning day for our housing association, this year there were fewer of the old guard, and more new faces. The chairman of our housing association was away, so I was in charge of delegating what everyone should do, and I must admit that I was surprised that it was a full time job in itself. I had no time to do any of the chores myself, and I have newfound appreciation for all the work that our chairman does when he organises the cleaning days.

Because of this I had rescheduled my original photoshoot to the week after, since we needed a full day and I had missed that this was the week of the spring cleaning. Anyway, fast forward to earlier this week. Bianca Brandt and Thea Sletsjøe reached out and wanted to do a photoshoot. So we decided to do it after lunch. The plan was to just do a few hours, but it ended up being the entire afternoon and evening. Afterwards we were curious to see how it had all turned out so we started sorting the photos, which also can take quite some time. They did not leave until just before midnight.

Thea Sletsjøe. Here we use the natural light, and work with the shapes the window light creates

While renovating my apartment I occasionally photographed there now and then, and the light was really good in what eventually became “the Green Room”, so it soon became my dedicated photo room. At first I wanted it to look like a clean studio, so I would photoshop the floor and make it as similar to a studio background as possible. But with time I started to lean more into the atmosphere of the room itself. When I a couple of years ago invested in studio background and flashes, creating my “Kitchen Studio”, I realised that the plain background in the studio was boring, and every studio shoot became a challenge to add more character to that empty space. The two spaces, “the Green Room” and “the Kitchen Studio” have their own place and complement each other. The first I use and shape the natural light in different ways, and in the second the light is artificially created and controlled. With the summer fast approaching I again hope to do more outdoor photoshoots, to bring a bit more variation to the photos.

Thea and Bianca had brought a few different outfits that they wanted to photograph in. I always appreciate when there is a thought behind what they bring. One thing I encourage is to bring vintage clothes, because if something has been saved 30-40 years, then it is probably good stuff. And you get a personal connection to older relatives or friends.