Yesterday was pretty busy. As usual - it’s been going on for a couple of weeks now, so I think I can say that it’s “usual” - I was down at the university until four in the afternoon, then biked home, had something to eat, grabbed my camera and headed down to Stine.

After some gentle persuasion, I’d been able to get her to act as portrait model for me, so I could test my new camera by taking pictures of other things than half-melted, dirty snow. Unfortunately, she is not very comfortable having a camera in her face, and she got a bit tense when I took the first pictures. It got a little better when we decided I should just take pictures of her while she was doing something else, thus trying to pretend that the camera wasn’t there. She was watching TV, I pointed the camera in her general direction and shot. Unfortunately, this technique doesn’t produce very good results, and I deleted thirty or so pictures when I got home. I got a few good ones of her after a while, when she got used to the camera and was able to look natural even if she knew that I was there with it. I also took a few pictures without flash and played around a little with the shutter. The best pictures I got without using the flash, but it’s impossible to keep the camera still to prevent the pictures from getting blurry when the shutter time is high. I think I need a camera stand.

What did I learn from this? It’s not enough that the photographer is be able to handle the camera. He also has to handle the motive, in this case a model, with great skills, skills I haven’t got yet. But I’ve asked both Klas and Kine to model for me, too, so I might just get the hang of it some day.

One thing is for sure; it was great fun, indeed. And I think Stine had some fun, too, when she loosened up.