Photo Profile : Nicolai Amter

I started to photograph when I was about 15, in my native Denmark. A friend asked if I wanted to take a share in a darkroom and so my love for photography began. I remember an evening in the local photography club where the theme was ‘Frames’.

One of the members had mounted a slide film frame with nothing thing in it and told me “a frame is a frame no matter what”. As crazy as it sounds that somehow triggered something in my mind and after that I started to look at my photography differently. I began to experiment much more with the colours and using elements from several negatives to create something that was recognisable yet different.

This was a long time before digital photography or Photoshop, so many hours was spend in the darkroom cutting mats, retouching with brushes and burning and dodging prints. Music have always been a big part of my life and after doing a commercial photography degree I started working as a music photographer doing live concerts, press shots and shooting for various magazines.

This let me into directing music videos, commercials and other live action projects. As I then started to combine my eye for images with movement and music, without really thinking about it, I stopped doing still photography. About 15 years ago I move to London to develop my directing career, and even more years went by without thinking seriously about photography.

But a few years back I saw a little camera in a shop window, this was the first Ricoh GR Digital. That camera have single handedly revived my love for photography. I have now over the years owned all of the models and will always bring it with me where ever I go. I love the easy access to manual controls and the 28mm lens. On my website and my flickr page most of the stills you’ll see there are done with that camera.

Even though I know Photoshop inside out, these days I usually only do minor retouches but spend lots of time getting the right colour grade. I can’t really say I have a specific subject I pursue, for me it’s more about the quality of the light and the colours. I like to shoot against the light, I love how the light flares and burn out areas in the shot.

As photography and video equipment have started to merge more and more, I last year bought a professional DSLR which I now use for both video and stills work. It’s great how I am now able to offer my services both as a self-shooting director and photographer using the same camera. But my Ricoh is still in my pocket, and is still used a lot. This year besides to my directing jobs, I am hoping to do many new photography project, especially music, portrait and editorial work.

Links

My website: http://amter.com
Flickr Page : http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicolai_amter/