1 Night - 2 Bands - 150 Models

One of the most frustrating parts of stock photography is that, for every single image you put online to sell, you--without question--MUST have a model release. A model release is a document the model signs giving the photographer permission to use (and sell) the photos of them. Getting a model to sign a release isn't annoying when you're hiring an actual model for a specific shoot, but if you're out shooting at events or shooting a model in public and someone walks into your shot, that shot becomes pretty much useless. Unless you can somehow blur out that person's face in photoshop (harder than it sounds to get it looking natural), or completely remove them from the picture (possible, but time-consuming), then that was a waste of a shot. Sure you can throw the image into your portfolio if it's worthy, but you will never be able to use it commercially. So if you want to avoid having to get model releases signed in order to get natural shots of people in their environment, you need to get a little creative with how you shoot. Unfortunately, cropping people's heads out of an image usually doesn't result in the most aesthetically pleasing photos.

So… how does Yuri Arcurs, the "world's top-selling micro stock photographer", overcome this obstacle? He organizes a live concert with real bands, a cool venue, free food, free drinks, and tells people that the entrance is free in exchange for signing a model release.

The result of this was one of the most memorable nights I had working in Denmark:

• 150 models
• 12 photographers
• 2 bands
• 2 videographers
• 4 producers
• 1 stylist
• 7 hours solid of shooting and great music

There was a line that extended all the way around the corner of the street to get in to the venue. Everyone at the concert knew there would be photographers there and actually wanted to be photographed! The photographers could shoot anything and anyone in the venue with the security of knowing they had the model release for every person present. Every single face in the background of every shot had given us permission to photograph them. The worst part of the shoot was that, since it was still an actual concert, there was very little light... VERY little light. Even with top-notch equipment, this made getting sharp, in-focus images the biggest challenge of the night, especially with everyone jumping up and down enjoying the music. The best part of the night, however, was that the photographers had total control of the event--especially our boss.  If he wanted the guitarist to move a certain way while playing, he would. If he wanted a shot of someone crowd surfing, he would stop the band in between songs, and get a volunteer from the audience to climb onto the stage and leap into the crowd. If he wanted all the audience/models to sway their hands in the air in sync, he just needed to say the word and it was done. It took some getting used to, but by the end of the night, I was loving it. You could get anyone's attention from the audience and they would put all the energy of the concert into your photos. It was awesome. Here is some of what I got from the night:

All images are property of “On Life” blog or Yuri Arcurs Photography

Shoots and Ladders

I've done quite a few shoots since we've been in Denmark--all of them interesting and challenging in their own way. The first shoot we had upon arrival in Denmark (after the model casting) was called "A Day in the Life of…" and we contacted some of the new faces that were discovered during the casting. We asked them a bit about their life and if we could follow them around for a day or two shooting their daily activities. Keep in mind, while some of the new faces had modelled before, most had not, and here we were asking not only to take photographs of them, but to be welcomed into their homes and lives to capture it and turn it into something beautiful... and commercial. I agree that there is definitely beauty in everyday activities, but it still felt a little strange to be throwing myself into the life of a complete stranger.

The woman I shot was a beautiful 29 year-old new mother who was on maternity leave to look after her 7 month-old. I couldn't believe she had just had a baby 7 months earlier, because she was such a tiny woman and could easily pass for an 18 year old! In fact, she told me she sometimes gets charged the child's fare on the bus! At 29, that's pretty impressive! Anyway, while the other interns were photographing young professionals, students, singers, single dads, retired seniors, etc., I photographed Tanya, the maternity leave mom. The shoot went really well, though I would have loved to shoot more of just Tanya, simply because as soon as her son was in the picture, well, you can't really direct a 7 month old, so it was pretty tough. Still, I managed to get some great shots of Tanya on her own, and with her son, showing just how busy a new baby can keep his mother!  In the end, it wasn't as strange as I thought it would be to be welcomed into a stranger's life; especially because I got a sneak peek at a real Danish home and family, which is a unique opportunity and isn't usually the case when you are in a different country for work.

(On a side note, there are more pregnant women here in Aarhus than I have ever seen in my life.  It's as if they all got bored 9 months ago (which would make sense seeing as in the middle of winter in Denmark, there's only six hours of daylight).  And pregnant women don't try to cover up their bursting bellies with loose flowing clothing either; they wear skin-tight tops and dresses bought from one of the many shops selling fashionable maternity clothing [as contradictory as that might seem]. There are some extremely young, fit and beautiful soon-to-be mamas wandering this city right now. And always a cluster of strollers ["prams" for the South Africans] at the bottom of the stairs of every apartment building.)

After the "Day in the Life of…" assignment, we had one week where we scanned a whole bunch of images from various books and publications. And when I say "a whole bunch", I mean over a thousand. Yuri (Mr. Boss Man) figured it would be good for us to have a portable image library--emphasis on the "portable" part. Instead of lugging around the hundreds of thick books and dozens of volumes of magazines, we could put it all on a very small and portable hard drive. (To give you an idea, the largest book was about a meter tall by half a meter wide and very heavy. It took two hands to turn the pages without damaging them.) We now have a digital image library of everything from completely unknown to very famous images from around the world, past and present. The end product? Very cool. The hours and hours of scanning?  Not so cool.  Let's just say we found ways to keep it interesting. For instance, this is what ended up happening after day 3 of endless scanning, renaming, and reorganizing: (The scanner portrait looks much cooler than the process of scanning your face, though the humour value is high.)

The next assignment we had was an unusual one: instead of being given a written brief as usual, we were given three images. Each of the 11 interns were to have half a day to do three separate shoots inspired by the three images that were given to us. We had to replicate the original shots, and then do our own take on them, and turn it into a cohesive set of images that were inspired by the originals. The three images I was given were the following:

To get that first shot, I did a shoot with a girl named Alex. She's actually from the States, but she's living in Denmark doing her studies here. I had scouted a location earlier in the week to shoot on top of a hotel in Aarhus.  Actually, I'm still not sure they understood exactly what I wanted, because the only part of the top floor that's actually accessible is the balcony.  However, when I was scouting the top floor of a different building the day before, I could see from across the street that there was actually a very shallow staircase (more of a ladder, really) that led from the balcony of the hotel to the very top part--probably not for public access. But the hotel gave me, my model, and my assistant permission to shoot on the "balcony" for the morning.

The weather had been completely haywire the days before the shoot, and though I was wishing for some consistency, we weren't so lucky. The 3 hours of shooting involved running up the ladder to the roof of the hotel, shooting until the rain started, running back down the ladder and waiting out the the 5-10 minutes of heavy rain under cover, then running back up the ladder with all the camera gear to shoot more on the roof as the sun came out, and going back down when it started raining again. Alex was such a trooper with all the climbing up and down and getting soaked, and we ended up getting some great shots that day.

To get the second shot that was assigned to me, I shot a 4 year-old boy named Frederik. That shoot was tough.  Really tough.  First, there was the language barrier, most Danish people learn English in school, and they learn it so well that there's usually no trouble communicating at all! However, little Frederik wasn't in school yet, and didn't understand a word I was saying. His mother and aunt came along on the shoot and brought his little baby sister along too. So there I was, trying to direct Frederik in English, and have his mother or aunt translating over my shoulder. And they weren't challenging directions either. They were simple directions such as "stand still"--which, I suppose, is a challenging direction for a 4 year old. Secondly, he had an abundance of energy, and a very short attention span. It was tricky. I took the example image that I was given, the little boy legs in the big shoes, and expanded on the theme of a goofy boy playing with dad's clothing. I was completely drained and exasperated after that shoot. I think it was even tougher than my messy kid shoot--and that was shooting FOUR little boys. (After the shoot, I went to go play ultimate with a Danish team I've been practicing with since being in Aarhus, and life was good again!)

The third and final photo I had to recreate was very trippy and very photoshop-based. Taking the theme of the image very loosely, I simplified it to "something turning into something else" or a kind of "melting and morphing", and ran with that idea. It was a strange shoot to try and describe to my model, Emma, what I wanted from her in the studio because it's hard to visualize the final product and how I would be using her images later in post-production. Especially, when this is what I have to show her as my reference (and yes, this is why I chose photography and not drawing):

I'm really happy with the way the final images came out, and personally, they're some of my favourite images I've done recently. They all required a heck of a lot of photoshop work, but I think the end product looks pretty cool! (Just to give you an idea, the middle image of Emma in the hot, melting environment, well, that one image took me about 9 or 10 hours in photoshop. Want to give it a go?

In the end, it was just so nice to have three separate shoots where I had a little more creative freedom and could shoot something a little less "stock-y". And it gave me a chance to play around with photoshop, which is always something I've enjoyed!

All images are property of "On Life" blog or Yuri Arcurs Photography

Getting Someone Out of Their Clothes

A couple of days after arriving in Denmark, Yuri Arcurs Productions would be hosting a nation-wide model casting at the studio. Upon landing in Denmark, we had two days to prepare for the long weekend ahead. To accommodate for the high number of people expected, we turned the large studio at the office into two studios, and turned a medium-sized office space into another two studios. With the four studios set up, and everyone at the office having their own specific role (greeting the models, giving out information, answering questions, helping the models fill out forms, taking the photos, assisting the stylist and make-up artist, etc.), the doors were opened for 20 hours during which 700 aspiring models from all over Denmark and Europe came in for their 5-10 minute photo shoot. From people who had years of experience, to people who had never modelled before, to people who were just passing by the office and were recruited/encouraged by someone from the office to give it a shot.

Other than the long days on our feet, it was actually quite fun, and definitely interesting. It was strange to be perceived as someone in control of the results of the casting. I've been through many interviews in my life, both individual and group interviews, and I understand the pressure of performing and giving the interviewer what you think he's looking for. In fact, I've even been in the role of the interviewer for various positions. But it felt very strange to be the photographer or, for all intents and purposes, the "interviewer", to a bunch of beautiful and not-so-beautiful people, and learning how to judge within the first few photos if a few extra minutes should be spent shooting this person with potential, or just thank them politely for coming, and show them to the exit. It was a very strange feeling. I've always been a people-watcher (it's fascinating stuff), but the week after the model casting, I caught myself on several occasions staring at people to the point of creepiness. I've got it under control now, just so you know.

So now we've got models lined up for the rest of our shoots throughout the summer, which is a really nice change from frequently having to track down friends or people that I don't know or barely know in Cape Town and asking them if they would model for me. (Then again, that was a nice chance to meet some pretty awesome people!) I'll write about photographing some of the new models in my next post, so check back soon.

One surprising thing I learned about myself was that I am really good at getting people out of their clothes--scarily good, in fact. I seemed to be channeling some X-Men power-of-suggestion skills throughout the weekend.  We were told before the casting to ask people if they were interested in doing underwear or bikini modeling, and then to take a few shots of them in their underwear if they were. However, given the fact that this casting was, for the most part, to find models for stock images, and many people who had never modeled before would be coming in, I didn't think there would be too many people keen on the idea of stripping down in front of a total stranger to be photographed in their underwear. In any case, I must be really convincing. I mean, I was completely professional (because as a model, an underwear shot is a good thing to show a potential client wanting to hire you), but on the inside, I couldn't help being impressed and shocked at how many people took off their clothes after merely suggesting it. Then again, it's Europe. Modesty means a different thing here.

Here is a short video from the weekend (I make a brief appearance at 0:38), in case you want to see how the model casting went.

Aarhus, Denmark

So it’s 10:30pm, and still quite bright outside. I just closed the blackout blinds in the room I’m staying in and was about to crawl into bed and turn on a movie to fall asleep to. However, even though I’m tired, I don’t feel like sleeping–I blame the daylight outside.  It never really gets fully dark either. Even at the darkest point of the night, the sky is only a deep blue. Definitely not black.

We don’t currently have internet at the apartment I’m staying in. So I’ll just be writing this, and then posting it next time I have a chance. There’s internet at the office, but our computers are only arriving next week, and we’ve been too busy with a two-day model casting at work to have time for anything else.

So after 8 hours in a plane, a 3-hour layover in Dubai, another 7 hours in a plane, a 3-hour bus ride, a 1-hour ferry ride, followed by another bus ride, we arrived in Aarhus, Denmark a few evenings ago. We went straight to the office we’ll be working at for the next three months, where we waited to get taken to the places we’d be staying at for the rest of the summer.

We haven’t met the owner of the place where we’re staying, but I can tell by her apartment that she’s some sort of Super-Mom! All of her kids’ artwork-only-a-mother-could-love is framed and put up all over the walls, her cupboards are really well organized, the plants are all beautiful, and the living spaces reflect true Ikea-style Scandinavian fashion! I’m living with two other girls from the company: a French Canadian and a girl from South Africa. Neither of which are from the group of colleagues I’ve been living with over the past four months in the company’s house in Cape Town. Here in Aarhus, we’re staying in an apartment that belongs to a family that is spending the summer at their holiday home. That being said, we each have our own room. One girl is in the master room that has the sound system that we haven’t tried yet (don’t worry, I will). The other girl is in the little girl’s room, full of unicorns and stuffed animals and toys, and a little tea-party corner. I’m in the little boy’s room, with a bunk bed to myself (my suitcase gets its very own bed!).  It’s the smallest room, but I don’t mind actually. It suits me. There’s a great painting hanging on the wall, about 9 different cacti in pots all over the room, two taxidermied hawks above the wardrobe, fishing rods, a tackle box, a Barcelona soccer scarf hanging on the top part of the bunk bed, and a skinned fox hanging right next to that. It’s fluffy. Oh, and there’s also a lava lamp and a GIANT Buddha-board (I have a small one at home—you paint on it with water that then evaporates)! So I feel strangely at home in this little boy’s room.

(Images clockwise from top left: the view from my bedroom, some of the cacti in my room, the view from our living room, the Aarhus harbour)

Considering that every single other one of the other interns is sharing a room, we really lucked out. There are three other places that people are staying in, and all of them have to share rooms. We have the furthest walk to the office compared to the others (25 minutes), but I wouldn’t trade it! Besides, I sit in 45 minutes of traffic on the way to work in Cape Town, so a 25-minute walk feels like a bonus! We’re going to look into getting a hold of the city bikes tomorrow, which will shorten the time in half, I’m sure! The city bikes are the ones that you find at little stations all over the city, and when you put a coin into them, they unlock, and when you park it at any other station, it gives your coin back! It’s a 20 krone coin we have to use which is about 30 rand, or 4 dollars.

The first day at the office was tiring, but that may just be the 27 hours of travel hitting me from the day before. We spent the day rearranging the office and turning it into extended studio space for the casting that will be happening Friday and Saturday. Yuri’s expecting about 1000 people: kids, babies, families, teens, adults, seniors, etc. He said a lot of crazy people will show up, and a lot of beautiful people that you wonder where they’ve been hiding! We’ll be working 9-9 on those days: shooting, answering questions, directing people, helping with paperwork, etc. After the set-up today, we all sat downstairs and Yuri joined us in a welcome-beer from the beer-fridge that he keeps stocked and we’re allowed to have on Fridays.

*Warning: photo-nerdiness ahead*  The company just got two new cameras: the Nikon D800E and the Cannon 5D Mark III. I’m a little excited to try both of those because one of those will probably be my next camera when I buy one for myself. I love my D90, but it just doesn’t feel the same now when I look at the full resolution on the computer screen compared to the images from the cameras I’ve been using lately at work. I can actually see the difference in quality! *End photo-nerd commentary*

Everything here is bloody expensive. Bloody friggin’ expensive. Mince (ground beef) is almost twice the South African price, and eggs are about triple!  Fruit is definitely not as cheap as it is in SA. And all things yummy are also fairly pricey. A 2L of coke was 30 krone—that’s about 50 rand, or 7 dollars! Don’t even think about eating out, or buying McDonalds, or buying something from a corner store if you’re on a tight budget. Any kind of service is triple the price. Hooray for cheap labour in South Africa! If you want to serve yourself (aka: shop at a grocery store), then the prices are more reasonable, but still not by any means “cheap”. My experience in the grocery store was… slow. It took me a while for sure, trying to decipher words and find out what exactly I was buying. I actually managed to do a fairly good job, and I took an educated guess at some words that were later confirmed by Danes passing by. Skinke = ham. Kylling = chicken. Ost = cheese. I’d say I had about a 95% success rate, (because really, it’s nearly impossible to mess up “pasta”) but that missing 5% can be attributed to my mistake of buying buttermilk instead of normal milk. I am SO happy I smelled it before I put it into my coffee! The box said some Danish word and then “mælk” and it had the number 1,5%. I thought I was safe! Well… now I’ll just have to bake something!

The city is quite charming. The streets are insanely bike-friendly. Bicycle lanes in every road, and people—young and old, fit and not-so-fit—get around by riding bikes! There’s really nice architecture too, and some of the old cobblestone streets remain.

Anyway, it’s late and I’ve been writing for a while. It’s probably still light outside—thank goodness for those blackout curtains! G'Night!

People Are Amazing

No one wants to look bad in any photo, let alone one that will be posted on a stock photography website, for the entire world wide web to see. It’s only natural to want to look your best in an image that freezes a moment in time. No one wants to look bad in a photo.  Ever.

That being said, I never cease to be amazed by what people are willing to do for me as a photographer. From models, to friends, to people I have never even met! It’s one thing to be a model, being paid to take directions from the photographer, and being instructed to look a way that is not necessarily their best in a photo. But it’s an entirely different thing when you ask your friends to pose for you in any way other than a natural stock-y smile!

One of my recent assignment briefs was to take photo-journalistic style images of crying people at a funeral. The brief dictated that I was to show everything from mild to total devastation.

After organizing to shoot at a cathedral one morning, I arranged to meet one of my really good friends and a few new friends I had only recently met.  I had explained to them the brief in an email, neglecting to mention the part about needing to show “total devastation”. I figured that would surely scare away anyone offering to help me out by modelling for me. I think I sugar-coated it by saying I would need to show “different levels of emotional strength and sadness”.  That sounds pretty good, right?

I’m still unsure of how exactly it happened, but these friends of mine, who I know to be upbeat people with amazing senses of humour, gave me everything I needed—from exactly mild to total devastation! By the end of the shoot, everyone was feeling completely emotionally drained. Acting devastated can actually make you feel devastated. (Side note: there must be some life lesson hidden in this: that if you’re ever feeling down and force yourself to act happy, you will actually truly feel happy!)

When I presented the photos in front of the office of around 60 people, there was dead silence.  It was a little nerve-wracking at the time, but I supposed that was the desired reaction: gut-wrenching photos that make you feel something: sadness, hurt, helplessness, and even hopefulness…

Part of the same brief was to photograph two people visiting a graveyard and laying flowers on the grave. I thought it would make for powerful images if I chose a mother and a daughter showing the storyline of visiting the grave of a husband/father.  However, having just moved to Cape Town, my circle of friends consists of colleagues and my ultimate frisbee teammates. You can imagine that I haven’t befriended many young children. But through the helpfulness of one of my teammates, I was put in contact with a beautiful mother and her gorgeous 4-year-old daughter who were willing to help me out with my assignment.

We sent emails back and forth, arranging times and locations and wardrobe.  The night before the shoot, I received an email saying that the young girl’s dad would be coming along to the shoot, because he wasn’t too keen on the idea of his little girl and her mom going to meet two complete strangers in a graveyard! I shared this story with the colleague who would be assisting me on the shoot, and we both just stopped and laughed at the realization that the situation hadn’t seemed strange until that moment! But of course! What sane parent would want to take their little girl to meet an unknown photographer and assistant in a graveyard?! It just reinforces my amazement at the kindness and trust of people, and at the fact that the helpfulness of word-of-mouth and being a friend-of-a-friend is often overlooked.

We ended up meeting in the graveyard, and despite the beautiful little girl being as stubborn as anything, when she did decide to turn on her charm, she really turned it on—don’t you think?

            Photos copyright Yuri Arcurs

What Shoot Plan?!

One of the things we've learned is the importance of shoot-planning.  The ability to plan out all of the images you need and all of the images you want, and structuring them in a very specific way that makes sense and lets the shoot flow in an organized way from the first shot to the last. It's actually a great thing that seriously helps your time management on a shoot, especially when you have limited time with a model or at a location.

When shooting kids, however, it's a different story all together.  Last week, I shot four little boys, aged 3, 4, 5, and 6.  The brief was "Dirty Children" and I was supposed to aim for funny images, and ones that you might see on a laundry powder ad. Initially, I shot a little boy and a little girl, who must have been the cleanest children on the face of the planet.  They did NOT want to paint with their hands, did NOT want to get any mud on their clothes, and were only too happy to run to the sink to clean it off when they did. The four little boys, however, were only too pleased to jump right into it.

Under the advice of one of my fellow students, rather than following my shoot plan, I set up "stations". There was a painting station, a baking station, and an outdoor mud station. The very detailed three-paged shoot plan that I had prepared stayed in my bag for the entire shoot. There was no controlling these little monkeys. Whatever happened at each station was almost completely out of my control, and things escalated quickly. It got messy.

The boys had poured 6 bottles of multi-coloured paint all over the floor, and it went from finger painting, to having a full-on slip-and-slide on the living room floor, leaving blue, red, green, and yellow streaks spread out across every inch of the floor and all over the boys' clothing.

Bringing the boys outside was an even bigger challenge in model direction.  Mud and a soccer ball made it nearly impossible for me to give any kind of instruction. Luckily, with the very short moments of attention the boys gave me, and me shooting like mad the rest of the time, I did end up getting some very cute, laundry-detergent worthy shots.

I was told that the boys returned home to their parents with all kinds of mess-making stories, and that they slept incredibly well that night. A day of adults actually encouraging kids to get messy and play in the mud--isn't that every little boy's dream come true?

Images copyright Yuri Arcurs

Hi Again

To the many people who think I have dropped off the face of the planet, and to those who have considered my being eaten by a lion, I am pleased to announce that I am still alive and kicking. The plan to return home to Vancouver, Canada at the beginning of this year was rerouted when I was selected for a two-week photography competition in Cape Town. My best friend from Pretoria was also selected for the competition, so I figured a road trip and two weeks spent in Cape Town would be a perfect way to conclude my two years in South Africa. I wasn't expecting to have been chosen as one of the final 13 people and given the opportunity to spend the next 3-5 years learning and working, taking photos while traveling around the world. But alas, here I am, living in Cape Town--one of the most picturesque cities I have ever seen--and about to journey overseas to work in Aarhus, Denmark for the next three months.

Maybe this video of the two week photography "bootcamp" that I participated in earlier this year will give you a better idea of what I'm in for: 

I will be updating this site regularly, not only because it has been assigned to us at work, but also because I love going back and reading the other two blogs that I started (when I moved to France, and then to South Africa), and regret the fact that I didn't follow through on them. This site will keep you updated about my life, while I share anecdotes about my job, the places I visit, and the people I meet.