"The Portfolio Pro" - Constructive Critiques / Discuss

Luís C    says:

Dalla, first let me thank you for having accepted to give this interview to our members. Let us start by your name. I am curious about your name, Salbjörg Rita Jónsdóttir and yet you want to be known here as Dalla. Where does Dalla come from?

First I want to thank you for the interest in my work.

To answer your question, I’m named Salbjörg after my grandmother, who was very dear to me, she was always called Dalla and so am I. When I was in Germany though I was called my second name Rita, I had never used it before so I was happy with that, it derives from a courageous woman, a Bolivian friend of my mother who died very young fighting for human rights. It’s funny you ask me about my name, I find names and what they mean to us, and how they may affect us very interesting. I’m planning a photography project in the near future were I’m working with names.

We know little about you: freelance photographer and graphic designer based in Reykjavik, studied Media Art and Design at the Bauhaus University Weimar. Of course one's work speaks for hitself, but still I would like to know a bit more about your journey, how you started and what pushed you to photography?

I come from a creative home, my father plays every instrument and my mother worked in the theatre. Growing up I was fortunate to be surrounded by creative people. I went to concerts, theater and art shows from an early age. And living in a small fishing village in the north of Iceland, I learned to appreciate the nature, the darkness and being outdoors.

My father is quite a good photographer and would develop film in the washing room - so photographs were there from the very beginning. I did not really get into photography as such though before I was in my thirties, although I took a few courses through the years and was always documenting people around me with automatic cameras.

I had my first child in 2005 as I was studying Media Art and Design in Germany and bought my first DSLR at that time. With all these components coming together and being able to share my new fascination with other people instantly on the Internet I got hooked on photography and hungry for getting better. I had studied design and multimedia here at home, and worked at an agency as a graphic designer. I’ve been working as a graphic designer now for over 10 years. I still like doing graphic design, it’s a different kind of creative outlet.


What can you tell us about your primary influences? Are there any classic shots or photographers that you have attempted to recreate? Or are you driven more or exclusively by originality?

I’ve read art history and media theory and like looking through photography books, I love the theater and movies, these things probably influence me. But I think everyday objects and happenings shape my own style no less. And the always changing light around here is a major influence.

On a daily bases a lot of my online friends inspire me. Cheyenne Glasgow (Cowboy Montgomery: www.flickr.com/photos/cowboy_montgomery/) has been one of my favorite photographers since I started using flickr in 2006, her raw imagery of everyday life, her kids and being outdoors in Oregon. To name another photographer I love the work of is the Icelandic fashion photographer Saga Sig, especially how she treats colors and texture (www.flickr.com/photos/sagasig/). But the people who inspire me the most have very different styles from me. I’ve never tried completely recreating others work although I might have tried out coloring or contrast or something that I’ve seen and captured me. The light in Barock paintings of the Dutch masters like Vermeer is one of the few things which I can say for sure affect how I see when shooting inside. I think ones influences may sometimes be easier for other people to spot that than oneself.

You have a very diversified Portfolio, going from Landscape and Nature photography to design oriented essays. Yet it seems very obvious that your main subject is kids! What has driven you to this specific genre, one that most of us - maybe landscape photographers in particular - find so challenging?

As I had my own kids, my eyes opened up to a new world that had been closed to me – and hadn’t seemed very interesting. To my surprise children were suddenly these fascinating little human beings and I found myself not able to stop capturing their moods and pranks.



I must confess that my experience photographing kids has not been much rewarding. Children look very evasive, and yet through your work you almost convince everyone that it can be done easily. How do you approach kids to make them feel at ease facing your camera? How do you seize such evasive opportunities?

I find it easier now, but everything has its time. With my sons I know where my camera is, it’s sealed securely in a bag but it’s right at hand if I need it. They are not cooperative at all, but I’m used to it, I’ve learned to be patient, the older one is in a phase were he always frowns at the camera and the younger one wants to take a closer look at the camera each time he sees it. So when the moments come I grab the camera and run to get the moment before they notice the camera. I kind of steal the moment. Sometimes they’ll work with me and stay a little longer just as I wanted to photograph them.

Photographing children for a client simply takes time with my approach. It takes about 90 minutes in general. If the children feel everything is relaxed, we’re not in a hurry –it is
my experience that they are easy to work with and be around. We’ll go to a place that’s interesting to the children and where they can interact with the environment and each other. If needed I’ll ask them to stand or sit somewhere, move to another place, take a little walk and then repeat in a new place. I take photos as they pose, but I also try to get the images where they are not conscious about the camera, the moments in between.

After the first half an hour normally everything starts to flow naturally. They start looking at the environment, play and interact with each other. I don’t interfere with how the children are dressed, and I’m happy to meet anywhere the children want to be, I see my photographic sessions as interpretation and documentation. It’s not about styling or creating something for decor. I want to make a memory for people, capture a feeling if possible.



You use side and backlighting a lot, a fine example is your "by the window" set. Backlit portraits can be wonderful but are a challenge. How do you approach this particular subject as much as it concerns technical and lighting choices? Do you use fill flash or any form of artificial light during these sessions?

I try to use available light as much as possible, but I do sometimes use reflector or a strobe (I’ll mostly diffuse the light with an umbrella or by flashing the opposing wall if I’m inside) to fill in the shadows. Many Icelandic homes are painted white or in very light colors so that helps of course reflecting the light inside but the winters are dark, and it can still get pretty dim inside during the day. Against the bright outdoors light, fill in flash or a reflector is simply necessary sometimes to even the light of the subject and the environment. But I also shoot Raw to be able to deal with strong contrasts of light and shadows better in post-processing.


For those of us that have followed you work regularly it became obvious that it evolved along time, both from an artistic and a technical viewpoint. Recently the Lensbaby became your favorite tool, one you master perfectly to give your images a strong dynamic feeling like if your subjects were in motion. My question is about how you got here and about what do you think your next step will be? Do you have a photography project you dream about?

Regarding the Lensbaby, I had been wanting to create a tilt shift effect in my images since I saw Jane Campion’s ‘In the Cut’, there was something very poetic, nostalgic and a bit scary how it was used there. The Lensbaby seemed like an affordable tool to experiment with tilt shift, and now it is one of my favorite lenses.

I’ve been going with the flow, just improvising what came along on my photography journey. It has been like sketching, sharpening technical abilities, exercising. This path so far has been great and fitted well with having young children. I’ve mostly been photographing what is around me and what came along.

Now I’m at a crossroad, because this is not enough anymore, I need a new challenge. My sons are now in good day care / school so I have more time and there are a few projects in the back of my head that are taking form. The first project is the name project I mentioned, it is partly about identity and taxonomy. Analog photography is calling too, I miss the developing process and holding the film, let’s see about that. I want to exhibit, and make books. I would like to collaborate more with other people. I studied anthropology for two years, and one dream project would be to work on a project with an anthropologist, to work in the field.



Could you describe your editing workflow? What software do you use and how do you use it? How much of your work is done in camera and how much is done in post-processing? What is your opinion on the use of post processing?

I shoot Raw; first I’ll do basic contrast and color corrections in Camera Raw, than edit with Photoshop. Generally I can say that I add a bit of contrast to the focus points of the image with masks, correct color tones and contrast overall and correct skin tones and crop if necessary. I try to work as much as possible with adjustment layers and masks, and not to alter the image layer itself.

My most used PS tools are Layers and Masks and Curves and Blends. I also use Shadow/highlights somewhat, filters like Lens blur, Gaussian blur, Sharpen and High pass. But I was more fascinated with editing before. And of course things were often less to my liking coming out of the camera because I didn’t know my tools as well as I do now. I’m always learning something new with photography, and that’s one thing I love about it. Today more of my work is done in camera.

I wouldn’t say I have an opinion of post processing, do what you have to do to get the image you want. I’m not searching for the ‘actual’ truth in a photograph.

I like experimenting, in camera and in the editing process. Photography has no holy dogmas in my book. I will not look at an image and analyze if it’s a photograph or graphic design. I try not to get occupied with if a photograph is bad or good from a technical or aesthetical standpoint. I will look at it and wonder what it shows, what emotional and sometimes what intellectual impact it has on me, what story it tells and maybe how and where and even why it was made.

That said of course I’m aware of that it matters in what context an image is presented, like in forensics, war photography, or when documenting. There are ‘rules’ there that have to be discussed and agreed upon if we want to believe these images are transmitting certain kinds of truth.

Let me now approach some more prosaic aspects of a photographer's work. You are a freelancer and eventually willing of or already making a living from photography, even if you didn't opt for doing the probably more rewarding wedding sessions. How did you go about setting up the business and how did you manage to get your first customers? In other words how do you market yourself?

My income comes from freelancing as a graphic designer and a photographer. I both license images and offer photo sessions, mainly for children and young people. I actually have shot a few weddings and done advertising photography for various companies although I still haven’t published much of it on my websites.

I don’t market my work in a direct way, like with advertising or name cards. I simply started getting requests very soon after I began sharing my work on the Internet 6 years ago. I mostly rely on word of mouth and I use the web, my own portfolio/blog, flickr and Facebook and now Google+ to publish my work. I try to update regularly and leave my posts well tagged and preferably with good descriptions if I have the time. I get some amount of relevant searches coming in to my website who lead to photo sessions, both from my fellow Icelanders and now and then from tourists that are traveling here.

I am enlisted on Taproll, Photoshelter and some Icelandic websites as well and I can see that searches also now and then come through there and have led to projects/sales.

In short, I get listed on many different social websites, to be found there if needed, but I mainly concentrate on using a few of them, flickr, Facebook and Google+ at the moment.

This next question follows from the previous one. You expanded your web presence and now besides flickr we can find you at your personal website and blog, facebook, Google + and twitter. What's your opinion about flickr and its role as a marketing tool among such an extensive array of social media? Where does your public (and your clients) come from these days?

I guess I answered part of this question in my last answer. Regarding flickr - It is still one of my most important marketing tools, 90% of the people who contacts me to buy an image license names flickr as the source. I always take special care to tag and place flickr images on a map so they’ll be easier to find as I upload new images.

In my work as a graphic designer I’ve used Getty images and Nordic Photos for images sources if the time is very limited but flickr is the main source if I have more time. Sellers on flickr are sometimes inexperienced in the process so it can take more time, but it has always worked out fine. I think ad agencies are seeing flickr increasingly as a source judging from my own experience. I’ve been contacted directly by agencies myself and at my old agency we often licensed images we found on flickr.


It seems your passion for photography began well inside the digital and Internet age. To the best of my knowledge you have no experience with film cameras or darkroom processing. What effect do you feel the digital age has had on photography and art in general?

I’ve always been interested in photography, and did take a few photography courses working with film. But it did first become truly a passion in the digital age. As for so many it got more affordable and easier to experiment with photography, and therefore it was possible to learn faster.

Easier access to photography resources for more people and how much easier it is to share it in the digital age is great. I find art and photography are more interesting in the context of individual expression than it is as official valued art. We can get lost in talking about if photographers are getting worse or better, but the good thing is that more people are exercising their creative side.



Dalla, there is one final question that perhaps every photographer should ask himself sometime in life. What’s the most important life lesson you’ve learned through photography?

Good things often take time.

Thank you Dalla.
Originally posted at 4:19PM, 8 November 2011 PDT (permalink)
Luís C edited this topic 4 months ago.