Gil Shaham

What an incredible positive force of nature. A seasoned artist, but yet so youthful in his music making and always so connected with his fellow musicians.

A week and night to remember, for sure.

Leif Ove Andsnes

One performer, one perspective.

I wanted to see if one could tell a story of the rather intense and intimate rehearsal process, from only one perspective.

The great Leif Ove Andsnes rehearsing works by Debussy and Franck with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra in May 2024.

Documenting this part of the artistic process is in many ways as interesting as photographing the end result, the performance where everyone with a ticket can attend.

La Bohème, a Scandinavian edition.

Maestro Massimo Zanetti

• Concept, stage design and stage direction

  José Cura

• Current direction

  Victoria Bomann-Larsen

• MIMÌ

  Elsa Dreisig

• AUGUST STRINDBERG/RUDOLFO

  Stefan Pop

• EDVARD MUNCH/MARCELLO

  John Chest

• TULLA LARSEN/MUSETTA

  Lina Johnson

• EDVARD GRIEG/SCHAUNARD

  Magnus Berg

• SØREN KIERKEGAARD/COLLINE

  Petri Lindroos

• BENOIT & ALCINDORO

  Ola Marius Ryan

• JULBOCKEN/PARPIGNOL

  Arnstein Morken

• TRONDHEIM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND CHOIR(S)

Up-close with Klaus Mäkelä, the Oslo Philharmonic and The Nordic Conductor´s Forum.

Péter Eötvös in Stavanger

I spent a day in Stavanger observing and documenting noted composer and conductor Péter Eötvös working with a selected number of participants from the Norwegian conductor’s program (Dirigentløftet/Talent Norge/Sparebankstiftelsen).

Maestro Eötvös was this season’s Composer in Residence of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, also conducting his own works.

Here are a few impressions from their last workshop day.

Two days at the Opera House in Oslo.

I was recently back in Oslo making portraits of orchestral and choral conductors that take part in the Norwegian conductor’s program (Dirigentløftet/Talent Norge/Sparebankstiftelsen).

The sessions were held inside the beautiful Opera House. As a lover of architecture, it was a treat to have the textures and shapes of this iconic building as my backdrop.

Here are a few samples from these sessions.

Three days in Oslo photographing 10 conductors.

The talent program for young conductors from, or based in, Norway (Dirigentløftet/Talent Norge/Sparebankstiftelsen) recently hired me to make new portraits of their current roster of talents.

The sessions were held at Sentralen in Oslo. Even with such a cool location, it was still a real challenge to make one location work with no less than 10 distinctive individuals.

Here are a few samples from our chamber music like sessions.

Berlin meets Røros, through music.

I have a passion for music, obviously, and for photography. When those two worlds meet, then I’m really in my “happy place”. That happened recently in Røros (Norway), a wonderful place in so many ways. It’s a town of great beauty and character, and consequently included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Combine that with just as welcoming and dedicated locals, world class musicians from the Berliner Philharmoniker mentoring young talents from Norway and it would be hard imagining a better day out in the field.

The day started at 4AM, catching an early train to Røros and ended back home again at around 11PM. The client, “Vinterfestspill i Bergstaden” (a festival being held in March each year), wanted promotional images of Røros, the people involved locally and the visiting artists. A real challenge fitting all those things into a single day of shooting, but seeing the different images now appearing on the festival’s website and social media platforms, I think that the collaboration went quite well. Take a look at https://vinterfestspill.no and judge for yourself.

I’m delighted to be going back to Røros for the festival in late March.

Portrait session

I had the pleasure of doing a studio portrait and “lifestyle” session with chief conductor of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra & Opera, Han-Na Chang, recently.

This session continued our collaboration from last year, when we made a series I called “Han-Na Chang in Trondheim”.

All these images are now the visual backbone of her website and press material:

https://www.hannachangmusic.com

I have now switched to an all Leica-setup, and I am delighted with how this system works for me both on location and in the studio. Like everything, it has its quirks but the gorgeous image fidelity makes it all worth while. I enjoy that the images coming straight out of the camera is so close to where I want them to be, the editing is more about tweaking than completely rebuilding the image file.

Our planned “conductor on stage and in action”-session sadly had to be postponed due to the Covid-situation, but will hopefully happen later this spring.

Gear used:

Leica SL2s

Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm/f2.8-4 ASPH.

Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 90-280mm/f2.8-4 ASPH.

3x Profoto B10 studio strobes with various light modifiers.