Peppe Ericsson

Let me introduce to you the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world. This is Débora. I love her with all my heart. <3

As I told you in my previous post I worked with some great people this weekend. I just had to show you one more image from the day. This is Randy. I had the privilege to work with Randy before and was thrilled when he contacted me a while back and told me he and his wonderful girlfriend, Johanna, needed some new images for their model portfolios. These are just simple studio stuff for the agency. I’m so happy to work with Randy again. He has a great attitude and works real hard to get the best possible result. Johanna was just as great. With models like them my job is really to easy. To top it off I had the rest of the team behind me. Thanks guys for making my day.

I realize now after some advice from my learned colleagues that I need to improve my blogging. I’m grateful for these advice and hopefully I will learn. I still haven’t figured out really how this works. I guess I have to. I must admit it is kind of fun.

This has been a great weekend. I was fortunate enough to work with a great team. We did pictures for two models, this first picture is Susanna. She is a great person and model that needed some new images for her agencies here in Sweden, Milano and to show in London. The people I had the pleasure to work with was the most talented models, Johanna and Randy. The inspiring assistant for the day Tobias Karlsson, in himself a talented photographer. http://www.tkfoto.se/ Last but not least the wonderful makeup and hair stylist Sara Setterwall. I made every possible mistake but it felt great to work with such talented people. My head is now filled with ideas for the next step.

Now I actually do feel a bit tired. I was just about done to send todays work off to the agency when I realize I had forgot a bunch of sleepingbags. Well, I just fire up the trusty iron again and get going. It’s been a long day but still not as confusing as my days have been lately. I’ve had to take a good look at my life and where things are heading. What are the important things? I got to the same conclusion I usually get to. It’s my job. I can’t just help it. I love my job. I’m proud to be a professional photographer. But that does not have to exclude everything else. I will not change all that much, I still live photography. I just have to make room for that significant other, I hope she can forgive me for being me as I forgive her for being herself. Life is so complicated. In the midst of all this I find myself happier than I been in a long time. After 30 years of working just to be able to work another day I got a purpose. I have been able to formulate my goals and started to think of how to get there. Enough of this personal stuff.

Inspirational people. I started with a close friend and today I decided to write about another friend. It’s not only friends that inspire me but I wanted to start with them. My friends give me strength on both personal and professional level. This guy have been a close friend for just a few years, still I have seen him go through a number of phases. He is a few years younger than me. To be honest I started working professionally by the time he was born. By the time he got into photography I had a whole bunch of little letters I can put on my business card if I cared to. I did have them back then with a braggingwall in the office and all. Enough about me. Knowing him has taught me so much. I first saw his images in a website, before I ever knew him. I have never admitted this to him but his images got me started doing fashion again after years of mainly doing products. What I saw in his images gave me that little push I needed. Even today he pushes me to try new stuff in almost every shoot. What is the inspiration in him? There are many things. What struck me first was his composition. He has an intuitive way of composing his images that I just can’t figure out. The stuff he does is just not possible. It breaks every rule in the book but it’s still genius and it works. I have printed his stuff for portfolio and exhibitions a few times and when his work don’t fit the paper size, and it never does, he just tell me to crop and make the image fit. It breaks my heart every time. His work just can’t be cropped. That is his real strength. When he works with his own stuff and don’t think he can do images that just blow my mind. He is a fashion photographer but not purely fashion. Some of his strongest work is in press. That’s where his eye and his composition, his great use of natural light and location can really fly. I’m not saying his fashion work is not just as great but when he has to adapt to putting in type and make his images fit certain sizes, when he got to shoot clothes he don’t like some of that magic is gone. Still great work I would be proud to be able to do. Doing his own stuff in his own way combining fashion and press it’s purely magical. There is an humanity in his work that is so wonderful. If I was ever to ask him how he does it I’m sure he can’t answer. He just got the gift. It’s a rare thing. He inspire me to work harder, to live my work. He inspire me to think I’m ok. He has a great personality that when you are around him you just feel a bit better. I know he tries real hard to be a badass but he is as far from a badass as you can get. Ok, I’m not going to say he is cute but actually he is a bit cuddly. What I admire him for is his dedication, he is dedicated to his family and I have seen him struggle so hard against all odds to do right by his family, to his friends. I know that if I ever need a friend he will be there, no questions asked. And truly how many of those friends do you have? His dedication to his art, to his photography. This dedication is there in everything he does. He never does anything halfway. Behind it all is also a great man with knowledge in a variety of fields, I remember all the nights we spent together discussing photography, religion, wines, food and everything that make life worth living. Bashing him will be an Olympic sport in Rio 2016, the only sportevent I will ever be able to excel. Lately I’ve seen him go through a rough time and I’m so happy to see him now back on track. It’s so great to listen to him talking of his trip back home to see his family for the first time in years. Doing his thing only he can do. My great burly, loud and wonderful friend, the one and only Ryan Garrison. Check out his stuff at his website http://www.ryangarrison.com/

Todays image was done last spring. The model is the most beautiful Matilda. I wanted this old film feel to it, I’m still working on that. I know I could use film and be done with it but honestly? Why use film when you don’t have to? I did it last summer in Smögen. That was a wonderful trip. Ok, now it’s again dawn, I still got the sleepingbags to fix before I can get some sleep. Tomorrow will bring new joy to all of us I hope.

Here we go. Lambis blog and some of his work. Enjoy. :-)

lambisstratoudakis:

Fluid Cuture. More under BOOK @ www.lambisstratoudakis.com

(via apneaimages)

Another day is breaking. I don’t know why I always end up writing this at night. It’s not like I had that much to do today. I put together the little house and carried walls around. Next time I’ll get my muscular American friend here to do that. When he done all this training he got to put it to some useful purpose.

Unfortunately I had to face things I dislike with a passion. How people can hurt eachother, how they can turn a relationship into a powergame. I just can’t understand that. How somebody can hurt somebody else in the name of love. All I can do now is stand here and be pounded upon to prove that I stand by my word. What it does is that it makes me stronger. I know what I feel is for real and I will never fail. I don’t want to own you and my love is strong enough I don’t have to control you. I got many faults but I’m not afraid to trust you. I am who I am and not afraid to show my weakness.

I promised is to share my inspiration. I’ll pick somebody every day for a while now. It’s not a ranking and I just take them as they come into my mind. This first is a close friend that I talk to regularly. His photography has inspired me for the last few years. Not so much for it’s content but because of the combination of the man and his work. When I got to know him he did fashion like everybody else but his work had a twist. Unlike my work his had all the signs of being art. You can see in his older fashion work a sculptural feeling in his poses, cropping and in his choice of locations. There was never a detail out of place. What he does is inspire me to pay more attention to detail and planning. Over the years his work shows a shift towards art and today he is truly an artist. I would be proud to have his work on my own walls. Had I had any walls to put them on. Today I consider him a full fledged photographic artist just waiting to have his break. I was with him in Stockholm a few weeks back at a portfolioreview. As he got some great reviews from gallery owners and magazine editors from all over the world. When he gets his break I can say I was there at the beginning. Kind of like I met Lassie. His work now has a sensibility and true feeling. But, I would never do images like his. I can’t and honestly I don’t want to. It seems like far to much hard work. Although his work inspire me it’s the man that inspire me the most. The dedication he show to his work, he does his thing whatever anybody else will say. He is strong enough to listen but he never compromise in his vision. I wish I could be like that more often. He goes through hardship with his vision intact and his childlike joy when he creates his images. He now work in any media that works for his vision. Be it Polaroids, film or digital. It’s the image that’s important not the media. I admire his stubborn determination to find his way, his joy of experimenting with the medias to create his image, his vision. He is a constant source of joy. I’m a lucky man to be able to call this giant my friend.

His name? For those of you who has not yet figured it out is Lambis Stratoudakis. Check out his work at his website http://lambisstratoudakis.com/ . Contact him to buy something or if you know a gallery owner help the world and let them see his images.

Now why did I choose this image of mine today? I did it for a friend for his birthday. He too inspire me in a totally different way and as we get there I’ll tell you how. So this image is for a friend. The people that follow us through life and give us strength as we falter. Maybe I should have shown one of Lambis images but, hey, this is my blog after all.

Well, here I go again and yes it is again at dawn. I didn’t even have much to do today. Just a few shoes and to build a little house. Atleast kind of. Well all of that is done now. To be honest I have spent an awful lot of time this weekend just staring into nowhere with a silly smile on my face. There is a lot of good to say about missing somebody and it’s a rather nice feeling to have somebody to miss.

I’ve told you before I would talk of what inspire me in my work. This image is an example of that. As I think most can guess it’s done for Primus for a campaign for their new colorful thermosbottles. I come from the era of film and back then you had to build a shot. I know I could have done this out of a shot of the bottle and a few pics of leaves. Now I used 4 lightsources, 11 stands, half a roll of tape, 15 clamps and 5 hours to set it in one shot. I truly enjoy this. I could have done this easily on film. It would have been 3 frames and maybe 4 polaroids to set the exposure. What’s the inspiration in this you may ask. Well, first it’s the challenge to do it within a budget and withing a timelimit. To prove to myself I can do it. I got to set my aperture to get the bottle in focus as I want it then set the different groups of leaves to get them at just the right distance to get the right amount of fuzzyness in them. I got to light each group of leaves separately to keep the eye on the bottle and not lose it in all the other objects, still keeping it possible to set the text.

The second is the great team from the ad agency that I work with, www.nkel.se, with the artdirector Jonas. I worked with these guys for close to 15 years. They have challenged me from the first job I did for them. I’ve seen them grow and get some great clients. I’m so happy for their success and I hope that my effort has had some little part in this. Over the years Jonas has inspired me by giving me jobs that I more often than not has no idea if I can pull it off. That has made me a better craftsman. He and the others at nkel have a great attitude, they are positive and give a positive feedback even when they don’t like what I’ve done. With clients like that I realize why I got into this job in the first place. There has been times when I hate them for the silly budgets and deadlines they give me but in the end that’s what make me a better photographer. That is the inspiration that keep me going.

I have other people and photographers that inspire me on different levels. Each of them will get their day in here. I wanted to start with Jonas and nkel since he and all the others have given me so much.

Another summer dawn has broken. And I feel good. I know now I can make it. Every dream I ever had has come true. Except perhaps for that lottery thing. But I really can’t sit here on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to come fix me. I mean, am I really broken? Sure I feel like crap, I done a lot of bad choices but I can’t just feel sorry for myself. I made those choices and now I got to live with them. I can either go under or do something about it. I’m far to young to give up. The most wonderful woman in the world is by my side. How can I say I’m worthless if she is here? Since she is here I got to be great. I have to trust her. I got such great friends. I got to trust them. I can’t be wimp if they stay with me. I just got to get my act together and fix this. I’m good at what I do, I just got to make people see it. Sitting here waiting for things to happen is probably not going to do it. I tried that long enough. It’s not going to be any more of taking the easy way out. I’ve worked with the best and pulled it off. I’ve learned with the best. If I would just use what I know I would be great. Now I got all the reasons I need.