Erik Almas Photography

I get to see a lot of amazing places in my work as a photographer, and at times the effort that goes into putting the camera in the right place is nothing short of mesmerizing.

 

I have dived, rappelled and jumped out of planes to get the right perspectives. We have paid orange farmers to not harvest their orange trees so that we can take a picture a few weeks later and travelled all the way to Argentina to photograph potato fields. We have chased the seasons travelling southward through the US as leaves turned into autumn colors to capture the last bit of summer foliage and we have crossed oceans to create one image of a lush underground cave, photographing caves in Alabama and waterfalls in Hawaii.

 

 

I believe few people outside the world of advertising understand the effort we put into the photographs we take for our clients…

In this pursuit of creating pictures at a specific time, of a specific thing in a specific place I have great help, and in describing these efforts I do say WE as this is truly an effort of many.

A photographer’s right hand, and conductor of this effort, is a great producer who will research, source, plan, arrange and seek permission.

 

For this assignment, done for GSW, we ended up in the small town of Culpepper, Virginia.  Seems simple enough to find a lake, but what if you tie it to a barn which style you only find in certain areas of the country and that again to a vintage tractor?

Then the simple search for a suitable location is not so simple, and I lean on my producer to make it all happen.

It starts with finding the states where this certain style of barn exists, then looking at places likely to have old restored tractors close by with a beautiful lake in the vicinity.

When the general region is decided upon we send scouts out to take images of the barns and lakes in the area. They will knock on doors and ask if the landowners would be ok for us to come by and take a photograph…

The agency creatives, clients and myself will then pick a place, show up, wait for the right light and hope all those efforts and the travel of many will result in the image we all hope to capture….

 

 

 

 

Moving from a small town in Norway to San Francisco to attend art school was a massive cultural change. And that’s an understatement…

 

I soaked it all up searching for my identity and spirituality but found true resonance in the “Symbolism and Mythology” class. Joseph Campbell quickly became a favorite as he made initial sense of the stories told through religion and mythology.

That he had advised George Lucas in shaping the journey of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars sure helped and “The Hero with a thousand faces” became THE book…

 

Today, as I continue my effort in crafting images that reflect my own story, I always refer to the Hero’s Journey. I find it to be the most powerful tool there is in shaping stories around my own life events that I want to describe and share through my photography.

Mythology tells the human story in such an engaging manner, and Joseph Campbell has offered a key to help understand their metaphors. His writings are my continuous support as I try to become a better photographer, depicting my own story…

 

This image of the car crashing into the river is from 1 of 4 shoots I just did based on recent life events of mine.

I could depict these in a literal manner, or look to the journey of all transformation and their cycles to help translate emotion into visual stories;  Stories truly connected to me but photographed with models and in some metaphorical way describing the emotional context…

 

 

 

To make it all happen the image was photographed in 2 locations and then blended together in post.

 

 

 

Last year I spent almost a month in Buenos Aires.

Half of that time was vacation, during which we took 2 hours of tango lessons every day. It left me with some amazing experiences, some basic Tango skills too embarrassing to ever use in public, and a very obvious reminder.

During these 2 weeks we got to know our tango instructors quite well. They were master dancers at the very top of their game, but they would still, every week, take lessons from other dancers. I was curious about this and in conversation asking why, the answer was the quite obvious; One can always get better and always learn a different way of moving.

 

 

I often feel that as a photographer I am in a bit of a learning vacuum. It is learning by doing and exploring, but not with the constant input of a mentor’s direction. I constantly think about the tango dancers in Buenos Aires and them learning from others every single week, and I recognize I crave this.
The best athletes all have coaches. They push forward on their own but always with guidance. Why would us photographers work different?

The environment for a location photographer like myself, putting in 250 days a year of travel, is not very conducive to a classic mentoring environment, so I’m not quite sure what this will look like for me. I have done a few workshops with other photographers, and go to lectures given by all kinds of inspiring people as often as I can.  This helps, but it is not a classic “master”…

A few weeks back I was having dinner with my great friend and photographer Thayer Allison Gowdy and the discussion came upon this subject of constant practice and learning. Friends of Thayer’s had initiated the “100 Day Challenge” online, and we decided to tag along.

Our challenge: To create one portrait a day for the next 100 days.

 

In this there will be learning by doing, but by doing it together there is accountability. Accountability to get things done and to explore and compare the daily portrait.

It’s intimidating to share work that is a part of practicing, but it is also liberating to put images out there with no other purpose but to keep myself to the daily effort of photographing someone.

Self-help gurus say the way to instill new habits are to consistently do something over 100 days. It will then become habit…

So on I go to create a habit of making a portrait every day. Through this hope to learn something new; a daily way of deepening my understanding of the elusive quality which makes a great picture, and my ability to connect with the people I photograph.

 

 

The pictures in this series are inconsistent in their quality, but I’m still utterly excited about the work. The series is not about the singular image but about me becoming better at my craft.

I’m excited about learning and excited to be doing something new. To create a new habit of constantly carrying a camera and constantly observing.

Here is an outtake of some of the 43 images so far…

 

 

All of them are posted live on the below tumbler blog if you would want to follow.

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/erikalmasphotography

 

 

In the locations and subject matters of my shoots I learn a lot of things that I otherwise never would.

From the history of cowbells to the history of Tequila, from diving in underwater caves to rappelling into caves of mountains.

It’s all learned and experienced through the camera that I carry.

 

One of my last assignments for Glad trash bags offered another curiosity; People just LOVE the scent of Gain laundry detergent.

Who would have known there are “Gainiacs” out there?? People so crazy about the Gain smell, finding it so “divine”, they make everything smell like it?

Well,  I now know. I have been initiated into the world of Gain scent!

 

When Glad  introduced their trash bags with the Gain scent they wanted to tell this story. It was time to let the “Gainiacs” know trash bags now came with their favorite smell!

And I was the photographer to be a part of it…

 

During the preproduction meeting of the shoot I got a rare insight into why the creatives wanted me to work with them on this assignment. It was quite fascinating for me as I’m never privy to the discussions of why an agency chooses a specific photographer.

When the agency introduced me to the client they described why they had chosen me specifically.

There was the light quality, bringing something ethereal to the image. The photograph could not be flat but had to have an airy sense of excitement about something mundane as trash bags.

There was the way I photograph women; Respectfully beautiful.

Then there was, to me, the really interesting part; They had looked at the way I photograph flowing fabric and found me perfect to make the trash bags visually more engaging than the plastic it is. To make them flowing in the air with grace as our hero woman in the ad impatiently ripped them out of the box and into the air to soak up the Gain scent….

 

I was surprised about the detail my images were looked at. In the end this helped both me and the final photograph as I decided to approach shooting the trashbags just as I would a flowing dress; With fishing line and wind mashines…

 

 

If you want a good laugh check out this short clip of us shooting flowing trash bags in the air…

 

 

 

 

A big thanks to the Advertising Agency Alma for trusting me to make trash bags look beautiful, seeing beyond plastic into the sensual flow of fabric of couture dresses…