bert’s film

monkey man

My beautiful, goofy monkey man. I’m feeling a bit tender and extremely grateful for such a deep but silly and playful partnership.

lost in hvalfjörður

Hi friends. It’s been a bit. I’m currently sitting next to my grandmother, where I’ve been for the last eight and a half hours listening to her inconsistent breathing and trying to offer her some comfort in her last hours. The nurse said she would leave us last night but she is one resilient woman and will not be told what to do. She’s 96 and has been ready for this for a while, so I di...

this year’s self portraits (pt. II)

All geared up with a tripod, I’ve had to find new challenged for myself. So I’ve been more experimental with light, movement, composition and storytelling. I no longer get very excited about a simple self portrait, I want to tell some sort of story with my photos. And being an actress, of course I take my character work very seriously. When I was a kid, I would create these little scenes al...

first year’s self portraits (pt. II)

For the last installation of “first year/this year” (for now), we have tripod self portraits. Although, in my first year I didn’t have a tripod, so I would stack book on top of chairs or boxes or whatever else I could find to set up a shot. So maybe I would have experimented more with an actual tripod, but I think I did pretty good with what I had. One thing I love about being on a small ...

this year’s self portraits

First take away: a whole lot more selfies this last year than the first. Also, a cutie has joined me (that first year we were “just friends” and living in different countries). Obviously, I’ve become more confident in finding the right lighting, although there’s one there that is entirely backlit, and have a bit more variety in my photos than that first year, but a classic film selfie n...

first year’s self portraits

I started shooting self portraits early on, as it’s the easiest way to experiment and figure out what you like and don’t like, since all you need is yourself, a camera and a mirror. It’s also fun to see that I moved apartments in this time, as you can see the mirror is in a different place at the end there. I have since actually moved back to that first apartment, so the mirror is back in...

this year’s portraits

I’ve been trying to post this all day, let’s hope it happens this time.

Honestly, seeing these compared to the first year ones, I feel very accomplished. I’ve really come a long way from those backlit, basic, and a bit boring portraits I was capturing back then. When I shoot portraits, I like to lead with silliness and playfulness and laughter, as it relaxes people and brings out t...

first year’s portraits

In my first year with a camera, I attempted some portraits. I didn’t understand lighting very well or what sort of feeling I wanted to evoke with my photos, so they turned out… not amazing. I remember having these images in my head that I wanted to create, but I didn’t know how to create them. But, as they say, you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette. So come back in a few minutes ...

this year’s landscapes

And now we have this year’s landscapes. You can see there’s a lot more consistency in the style of photos. There’s also less to choose from, as I tend to focus more on portraits or everyday life than nature/landscapes. And rather than going on photo walks in the city, I like to bring my camera on trips and shoot away out in nature. Photo adventures if you will. I also am more awa...

first year landscapes

Since I started shooting film, I’ve honed my style quite a lot. I wanted to share with you and compare photos I took in my first year with a camera vs. this last year, and I’m starting with nature/landscape shots. I took these photos in 2020, which was the year I bought my first film camera - a pentax spotmatic f SLR. You can see how my style started to develop even just in that first year....

portraits

Here is a series of portraits I’ve taken. The difference between my portraits and Annie Leibovitz’s remains the same. Hers are thought out; curated; designed. Mine are spontaneous; lucky; opportunistic. I am very lucky to have worked with incredibly creative people, who have either curated the sort of look they’re looking for, or presented moments that caught me, and so I caught them. I�...

Annie Leibovitz

Queen of portraits, Annie Leibovitz, will be the inspi

happy accidents

Yesterday, I got reposted on a film feature page on instagram and remembered that when I took that photo, I actually took two back to back. Carter and I were at an arts festival and went in the sauna. I had my camera with me (a waterproof canon prima as-1) and when we got out, I wanted to take a photo in the mirror. I took the photo and then realized I hadn’t wiped the steam off of the lens, ...

Inspiration II

It's time for the second round of my "inspiration" series, where I seek inspiration from the masters of photography! I had a blast with my roll of film inspired by Saul Leiter and analyzing it with you all, so I'm extremely excited to start this next one. A week from now, I will announce the results and get started on my new roll of film. In the meantime, I'll be sharing photos I've taken recen...

last saul series

In this last installation of my Saul Leiter inspired roll of film, we have Carter and I canoodling (fun word) on the one hand and Carter in bed on the other. The one I chose as my favorite of the first part was the second in this series. I actually would have chosen the first one had the framing been a bit better, because I love the detail of my finger on his face, but since that frame was a ch...

lounging

I wasn’t sure which one to pick as my favorite out of this series, but I ended up choosing the first one. Now I’m not so sure anymore, I might have changed my mind to the last of the series. At the time I chose, I was feeling bummed that the framing was off from what I had imagined, but with some distance I’ve been able to see it for what it is instead of what I wanted it to be, and I lik...

driving with Carter

Let’s dive right in. My first favorite out of the series - the first one you see here - feels the most like Saul to me. With the large amount of negative space (although with some texture), the glance towards the camera and the slight underexposed subject, I feel like I’ve seen a photo like this from Saul. Again, peeking a glance into a private space, the solitude of sitting in a car alone ...

us and amma

Another series using the mirror as a frame - honestly my comfort zone. Do I even have to explain why I chose the first one as my favorite? Well I will anyway. The frame cuts the mirror in half, and me with it, which at first glance annoyed me. But there was something about the photo that drew me. The longer I stared at it, which was quite a bit, the more enchanted I felt. There’s something of...

framed by the mirror

Our first series we are dissecting is the most straight forward form of frame-within-frame on the roll. The mirror as a frame. Actually, in the first three we don’t see the frame. Which is because I forgot for a moment what I was doing with this roll (I have multiple cameras serving different purposes) and snapped some selfies when I felt cute. So I didn’t include them in my favorites (and ...

First Saul

I got frames (in frames) back! These are my favorite of the bunch, and in the next few days, I’ll be posting the series around each frame and explain why this one is my favorite. Disect it a little, dive into the elements behind the frames and how I think they work together. So see you tomorrow!

my love

March 30th

We’ve reached today. And I want to end this posting spree on my favorite person. My favorite model, my favorite muse, my favorite creative partner and my favorite live-in inspiration. What a gift it is to spend my life with this man. I don’t usually gush about him online, we like to keep our sweet nothings between us, but this is a safe space and I got the urge to gush. Aft...

muses

March 28th

Man, the giddyness I felt when I got these photos back. So much playfulness and eagerness to create and experiment and it resulted in these absolute bangers. Bodies seemingly floating in nothingness, otherworldly and unbothered, without a care in the world. The exact feeling we felt in those moments, perfectly captured on film. These were taken in a cave, where there was very l...

vast

March 26th.

My dear friend Sandrayati released her song “Vast” a couple of years ago and asked me to shoot behind the scenes for her music video. What an easy shoot. Getting to piggyback on a whole creative team that conjured up this beautiful scenery. And Sandrayati herself is an absolute goddess, so it was easy to create beautiful photos. These were some of my favorites from that d...

she swims

March 24th.

These caves have lit me up creatively. In fact, there is a little announcement I will be making very soon that involves some of the photos taken in these places that I’m very excited about. These were the shoots that really honed me in on my style of photography. Of course, it is an ever flowing thing and will continue to change and evolve and grow and expand, but this was ...

beach boys

March 22nd.

Pivoting entirely, here are my boys at the beach. Carter, my love, and Úlfur (e. Wolf), my best friend. Fun fact: my partner’s middle name is Wolfe, my best friend’s name is Úlfur, which means Wolf in Icelandic, and my favorite author is Virginia Woolf.

This was back when I was making frequent and long trips to Manhattan Beach, where Carter was living, while we w...

ophelia

March 20th.

Some of my favorite pictures I’ve taken of Marie. Feeling inspired by the painting Ophelia by John Everett Millais, we attempted to capture some texture in the water while she floated in it. And as all inspiration does, it flowed on into other shots and ideas and created something original in its own right. And as you can see, some shots needed some slight altering to get t...

self and self and self

My dearest patrons, as I’ve been MIA, I will make posts today for every other day since I last posted. Starting with:

March 18th.

A series on selfies taken in 2022. Which, as you might know, was a whole three years ago. Time really flies by. The series was an exploration into the grooves of the body; trying to capture one that spoke to me. I positioned a mirror on my bed below a ...

quick bath

Second post of the day and last of my adventures with Marie in Iceland. For now. In this shoot in particular, she looked like a water nymph whose only responsibility is lounging in this little pool and keeping it safe from harm. Wouldn’t we all like that job?

I have really been diving into Saul Leiter and having a lot of fun finding frames in my frames. I’ve finished my roll of black ...

in dangerous waters

Another set from my adventures with Marie. The water was blue and cold and the stream was strong, so we remained on the banks for this one. Seeing how her body blended in with the rocks and her skin shone from the sun was another reminder of how we are a part of it all. All of nature and all of earth, we are of it. All these different textures found out there, we are simply another sort of text...

it is cold but we are free

Last post today. Have you ever run naked down a country road as mountains surround you and the cold air fills your lungs? If not, you should. It is a wonderfully freeing feeling. And it makes you giggle, and I love a good giggle. This is also a reminder to look around as you’re travelling and stop when you see a good frame to grab. You never know if that might end up being your favorite frame...