Lars V. Andersen
Before & After: “Innocence Lost”
Hallo, I´ll make this short.
Just want to show one of my newer images and the pictures that (combined) made it. The title of the image is “Innocence Lost.”
My son Thomas was model and did really well sitting still (when he got an ipad to look at!).
The cool clay head was kindly lend by french vintage store, Freng Brocante (visit her on facebook and instagram).
There was quite a lot more of changing the finale image with clone stamp tool, contrast, colors, dogde & burn and more, than I thought there will be. But in the end I got what I hoped for.
I´ll first show the final image and below, the raw images.
Any questions? Just ask by mail or by my Instagram or Facebook.
Before and After
Here are some “before & after” images of two of my recent dark portraits.
Composite photography is about “stitching” different images together and here you can see a couple of examples from my latest work.
It’s all about using your imagination. For an example I used a old pot to “be” my emty head.
Of course there is a lot more to it than just stiching the images together: Changing the finale image with contrast, colors, dogde & burn, removing things from the scene (eg. the electric power line from the doll image) and so on.
But hopefully you get an idea by these “before images”?
Any questions? Just ask by mail or on Instagram or Facebook.
Behind The Image – “Stand Your Ground”
This is walk through of how my new image “Stand Your Ground” came to life. As always – If you have questions after reading this, feel free to write me by mail or via my Facebook or Instagram.
Recently I made this image, which I did not quite know how to make when I got the idea for it – but I wanted to give it a try and I wanted to challenge myself.
In short: I wanted to combine a photograph with a painting.
I asked the artist Thue Møller Hylle (link) if he would paint a monster-like creature for me, which I could mix with one of my pictures.
He said yes and you can see the end result below. Below the picture you can read and see details about the process.
Title: Stand Your Ground.
Original monster painting: Thue Møller Hylle (Instagram: tmharten).
Concept/idea/model/edit/retouch and everything else: Me.
1. Theme:
To me the monster here is a symbol of anxiety, but it could might as well be the self doubt, fear of failure etc. in man.
When the monster comes for you, you can’t outrum it or hide from it.
The only thing to do is to face it, stand up against it and show who’s the boss of your actions!
It’s hard and scary, but it is possible. When you master this, the monster will no longer be as scary and you will be in control. Trust me.
2. Setting/location:
I shot the main frame on a road 50 meters from my house. I did it a foggy sunday morning.
3. Wardrobe:
I dressed in all black “everyday” clothes, because I did not want the clothing to steal the focus. It almost made it look like a silhouette.
4. Color:
Color, low saturated. I almost always make my dark portraits in color and not like my other photography (documentary, family photos, paid jobs), which most often are black and white.
5. Props:
The monster is the prop I guess:). I will describe how I put it in the frame later in “#8. Post Proccesing.”
6. Framing:
When I photographed the main frame (me on the road) I was aware of three important details:
a) Symmetry. Meaning the camera was placed in the middle of the road, so the “lines of the road” would end in the center of the frame.
b) I was placed in the middle of the road (symmetry again).
c) A lot of empty space above the tree line, so there was room for the monster.
7. Light (flash/natural light):
I used only natural light.
The early morning sun hidden behind the clouds and fog, worked as a gigant softbox (a softbox makes soft and awesome light).
8: Post-processing:
The photo was edited in Lightroom and Photoshop Elements (PSE). I started in Lightroom with basic editing on the main frame. I then took a photograph of a print I made of the painting (Thue send it by e-mail). Afterwards I composed the monster into the main frame, by deleting everything but the monster. It took a while to decide where to place the monster and when I did, I played with layers to find the best one suited.
I then layed some extra fog into the picture so that the monster would be less clear and I also dodged & burned a lot (dodge = lighten parts, burn = darken parts). The final color correction was made by presets I have made in the program Exposure X.
9: Gear:
I shot this with my Nikon d800 and my Sigma Art 35mm 1.4 lens. Settings were 1/125 sec, f/5, iso 400 at 35mm. The camera was set on a tripod in approx 1 meters hight.
SO! Let me know if you got questions! Make sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram if you want to see more like this.
Here are some un-edited frames used for making the image.
Behind The Image – Black Mirror
Hallo! This is my second “Behind The Image” post – if you have questions or think there is information you need, then feel free to write me by mail or via my Facebook or Instagram.
The title of the image is Black Mirror and I made the image in 2017.
Read below the image.
1. Theme:
Anxiety and depression. The feeling of the dark within trying to pull you into it´s blackness. Maybe you know what to do to get better, but some kind of force is making it hard to fight the thing that keeps you down. That is basically what this image is trying to show. But people may – as always – make their own interpretation.
2. Setting/location:
I did this in my old house. I did it in a corner of my bedroom, where the wall and window (with curtains) made the corner.
3. Wardrobe:
Just a pair of army pants and a black undershirt. I usually try to make the clothes timeless and avoid logo´s and stuff like that,but for this image I wanted clothes that would back up the story of a man in the 2010´s.
4. Color:
Color, low saturated. I almost always make my dark portraits in color and my other photography (documentary, family photos, paid jobs), in black and white.
5. Props:
I tried to find something cool for the shoot but did not really got a cool idea, to be honest. So I just went with this mirror table and chair which I had at that time.
6. Framing:
I spilt the frame up in two; one part with the white wall and the other part dark by the curtains. I was important to me that I as model, would almost fade in to the dark behind me.
7. Light (flash/natural light):
I used a single flash in a 60*60 cm softbox, placed on the floor besides the table (to the left), pointing towards my face. The light from the flash is the only light in the scene.
8: Post-processing:
The photo was edited in Lightroom and Photoshop Elements (PSE). I started in Lightroom with basic editing on the main frame (the picture of me sitting on the chair). I then took some photos where I held my elbow up against the mirror. Afterwards I composed the shots of my arms by Photoshop Elements, so they looked like the was coming out from the mirror. A lot of painting black on the mirror, use of the Clone Stamp Tool and dodge & burn was used, to make it more contrasty. I lay some texture on the background wall to give it a more raw look. The final color correction was made by presets I have made in the program Exposure X.
9: Gear:
I shot this with my Nikon d800 and 16-28 Tokina wide angle lens. Settings were 1/125 sec, f/8 at 20mm. The high f-stop makes all in the image sharp.
Let me know if you got questions! Or if you need more information. And make sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram if you want to see more like this.
Here are some un-edited frames used for making the image.
Behind The Image – Dark Sun, Dark Minds
This is my first “Behind The Image” story – I asked my followers on Instagram to choose between two images and it was actually a draw, so I flipped a coin to pick one:)
Title: Dark Sun, Dark Minds (made in 2017).
Read below the image.
1. Theme:
Anxiety. The feeling of no matter what you do, the dark monster of anxiety is always lurking to take control and make you powerless. It will try to convince your mind, that it´s stronger than you and you have to obey, if you want to survive. It may not make sence if you have not had anxiety in your life, but I hope that the image speaks to most people in some way.
2. Setting/location:
I wanted the scene simplistic, so I removed all furniture but the sofa chair. I used a room in my old house. That house was more than twice as big as the one I have now – and the only thing I miss (a little) is a room just for shooting pictures.
3. Wardrobe:
I was wearing one of my shirts. I kept it simple as I normally do.
4. Color:
I usually go for the low saturated look. It´s kind of my thing.
5. Props:
I usually use at least one prop when I shot (a flower, a mask etc). Here I used my single sofa chair (belonged to my grandmother back in the day). To make the “shadow man” I used a white fabric (see the pictures below).
6. Framing:
I like the centered framing, the symmetric look is something I really love and often use.
7. Light (flash/natural light):
I used a single flash in a 60*60 cm softbox, placed on the floor at front of the camera, pointing towards my back head. The light from the flash is the only light in the scene.
8: Post-processing:
The photo was edited in Lightroom and Photoshop Elements (PSE). I started in Lightroom with basic editing on the main frame (the picture of me in the sofa chair (exposure, contrast etc. and then did a composite of the main frame image with some pictures of me behind a white fabric (see the un-edited raw pictures below) – I always try my way when editing, I am no expert AT ALL, so I just played with the blendmodes in PSE and used the Clone Stamp Tool and other tools, so the shadows ended up looking like they did. The final color correction was made by presets I have made in the programme Exposure X.
9: Gear:
I shot this with my Nikon d800 and 35mm Sigma Art prime lens. Settings were f/8, ISO 200, shutterspeed 1/200. I try to have as low an aperture as possible when shooting an image like this (= f/8 rather than f/4 etc.).
That´s it! Let me know if you got questions! Or if you need more information. And make sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram if you want to see more like this.
Here are some un-edited frames used for making the image (as you see it´s not fancy!).
New website – Let´s go!
After A LONG time in the making, I can finally present my new website!
My digital designer friend, Thabo, has come up with a new “cut to the bone” look – and I´m really pleased with the result. I hope you like it too.
From now on I will mainly focus on my dark portraits and band photography on the site (I will still do business photography, family portraits etc. but I will leave that stuff OFF this page). I have lost interest in shooting live at concerts, but I will still do some “before/during/after a concert” documentary photography, if a band want some kick ass content to show their fans.
The future on this website: New pictures will be uploaded and as something new, I will post in the “NEWS” section when I have something, well, new to tell. I will share new images, thoughts about my photography (good and bad), “behind the image” stories, personal stuff and more. I hope you will join me.
Everytime I got new stuff on the site, I will direct to it via my social medias, so make sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram.
IMPORTANT: If you want to get notified everytime I post on Insta and/or Facebook, then click on the 3 dots next to my name and click “turn on notifications” – if you don’t, chances are you end up being in the 90% of followers who DOES NOT SEE new posts, due to the algorithms or what ever…
See you around!
