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Writer's pictureGeorg Fagerlund

This is Me | Portrait photographer in Perugia, Italy

Mi chiamo Georg, My name is Georg as you most likely already guessed. I thought it might be a good moment to tell a little bit about my self. It's always easier to stand in front of some ones lens if you know him a little better, and in portraiture and in people photography it's so much about the chemistry between the people involved if you want the shoot to be a good experience for everybody.



So who am I? You got the name, it's Georg Fagerlund, quite a Swedish name for a Finn, but if it's easier for you then you can use the English counterpart George or the Italian one, Giorgio. I'm born in the pictoresque town of Tammisaari in southern Finland. That's where I spent my first seventeen years. Then a move closer to the capital, Helsinki and at that point somewhere I finished my training and became a construction painter. At age of 18 I lived in various places doing some volunteer work, Latvia, Russia, Hungary and then Lithuania. In Lithuania I met my wife Alexandra, no not a Lithuanian, but a Finn just as I am. We got married and spent a few years in Finland. But as it is, - you know probably if you've ever been bitten by a travel bug, at some point you feel that you have to be on the road again! So we decided it's time to do some changes in our lives, and we moved to Bulgaria. We found a lovely home and a place for our selves in the small town of Botevgrad. During those years we made some good friends, experienced both good and not so good things, and our family got some new members, cats and dogs. One thing is for sure, it never was boring. Then eventually it again started to feel that it's time to move on. This time we chose to take a leap to Croatia. Another beautiful country in the Balkan peninsula. Again we met some wonderful people, made some good friends and experienced a lot. But as it happens sometimes, circumstances change and at this point in our life we decided that we have to return to Finland. We left Croatia with a dog and four cats and returned to Finland, and there we spent the next couple of years. In the midst of the covid-19 pandemic we started to feel that it's time to hit the road again, and that's what happened pretty soon we both had got the second vaccination. Now I find my self writing this short biography in Perugia, Italy, to where we moved. What brought us here? The same things that has made us move every time, volunteer work, hunger for life, lust for new experiences, adventure! Here we are in the heart of Italy, this time with our dog Nana and two cats Sissi and Pablo (Palle). What about the photography part, you might ask...



I grabbed a camera as fairly old I think, at age of 25. First a p&s camera, and I was hooked immediately. Less than a year later I had my first dslr-camera, and after that I've had a few of those. I guess my learning curve wasn't very steep. I took a few courses every now and then, but mostly I just fired away, sometimes even "sprayed and prayed" as they say. In 2010 I started to sell my photos through a Finnish stock photography agency, Vastavalo, and that was a turning point in my photography. In stock photography it's not only the artistic values of an image that counts, but more or less the technical side has to be excellent as well. Getting some good feedback regularly helped me to see where to improve and here we are now, 2021 and still shooting strong!



When I started in photography I shot everything, my camera was always with me. Then with time my focus moved heavily towards nature photography and landscapes. I still have a strong love for the natural world so I do lots of landscape photography. If I see beautiful flower somewhere I'll frame it as well, and then there is my sympathy for snakes and other reptilians, a subject I just love so much. In the recent years my photography has moved more and more towards people photography. In the beginning, when I started photography, I used to say that it's so much easier to shoot a tortoise in the forest than a person! The tortoise doesn't care about me and my skills and I don't need talk with him. I guess it was more about me being shy than anything else. Well, shyness is killed by going to action and interacting with people, and that's what I've been doing for a few years now, and you know what? I'm not that shy anymore and I've even noticed that I just love to work together with other people. So, if you feel that you are introvert, a shy person and find it hard to be and communicate with people you don't know, no worries, you can conquer it! I know I did!



When it comes to photographing people, I really feel that I haven't picked a genre for my self. Jack of all trades? Not necessarily. I love portraiture, but it's just so wide concept, and maybe it's easier to tell what I don't do. I don't shoot nudes, no full frontal or implied. Nor do I shoot budoir, bikinis or lingerie. What I usually say is that you can be as naked as you want under your clothing when coming to my shoot. In weddings I mostly love doing the official portraits. I love headshots. But I feel I really shine in dramatic, even a bit fantasy themed shots. Yes, all kinds of photography involving people clothes on, that's my thing!



And when not doing photography, what do I do? Big piece of my time goes to volunteer work, which I really enjoy. Having a dog makes me walk a lot, most often accompanied by my wife and a camera. That means good time for building a strong relationship and even capturing some landscape photos . Then there's something in those abandoned places I love, buildings, factories, houses, getting in those and finding out what's inside. So I guess you could call me an urban explorer as well. Eating warm sandwiches with lot's of mozzarella and watching Italian serials, that's how I often spend my evenings. That's my life in a nutshell. Nothing too fancy, a regular guy loving photography and the beautiful things around. Hope we'll meet some day on a shoot here in Italy or somewhere else, and then you can tell me your story! If there's something you want to ask, please feel free to do so in the comments or send me mail privately in here or click the icon in the end of this post!



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