Subaru – Eight Communication

It’s been almost a year since the XV Concept made its first public appearance at the Shanghai Motor Show, and now the production version is finally here – ready to take you from urban jungle to… Well, see for yourself.

RETOUCH: Andreas Lübeck
PRODUCER: Axel Engström
AD: Björn Linden
PHOTO: Getty Images

Samsung xCover – Spinn

Wind, snow, rain or mud – who cares about the weather if you have the latest Samsung smartphone. It is built to resist anything, including water, dirt and dust. Markel Ahlenius from Spinn asked us to visualise this, and these images were the final result.

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson & Johan Svensson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Kool – Vita

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Andreas Lübeck
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Volt – Friskis&Svettis

Ad Jörgen Berglund and designer Åsa Stjärnquist from Volt came to us with this project for their brand new client, the Swedish sports association Friskis&Svettis (Healthy&Sweaty). Due to the Christmas deadline this became a pretty perspiring project as many elements needed to be retouched together to create the illusion of hand written text on steamed up windows. You too can get sweaty by heading off to your local gym for yoga, dance or weights!

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Frederik Tennholt
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Coop – Änglamark

Coop Änglamark has Sweden’s largest ecological range with almost 400 products to choose between. Here are just two of them. Yummy yummy!

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Anna Nordstedt
PRODUCER: Axel Engström

Folkoperan – Lowe Brindfors

AD Lina Brunzell from Lowe Brindfors contacted us for this pretty unusual model shoot for the promotion of the 2012 opera premiere ‘Cleopatra meets Julius Caesar’. Cleopatra is portrayed as a ‘rather loose woman’ in the eyes of Caesar, although in a very positive way according to the AD. The idea was born for a classical singing ‘blow up doll’ in a Cleopatra wig. During the photography we found it impossible to keep the doll in one place at one time and finally we had to tape her to a tripod. We do wish her all the best though in her future modelling career.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Frederik Tennholt
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

ATG V86 – Åkestam Holst

ATG was launching their new horse racing betting game V86 and we were asked by Jesper Holst and Tobias Tolvanen at Åkestam Holst to help visualise this using CGI. There were three different environments where we would need to add different neon elements and advertisement signs. We even had to rebuild the whole entrance to the Solvalla arena. All the CGI elements needed to interact with the reflections and lights within the original photographs. This project involved an intensive combination of 3D and retouch work. The final images received high exposure on TV, in print, and on the web to promote the launch.

3D/CGI: Frederik Tennholt & Johan Svensson
RETOUCH: Frederik Tennholt & Andreas Lübeck
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi
PHOTO: Alexander Crispin

Apotek Hjärtat – Åkestam Holst

Green tea and coffee, mustard for the ham, peppermint and chocolate for the sweets and saffran for the buns. And don’t forget the spices for the malt wine. Mmm… what more could anyone want for these cosy swedish evenings leading up to Christmas.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Anna Nordstedt
PRODUCER: Axel Engström

What no chips?

Then how about pommes château from France or boiled new potatoes from Sweden?

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Anna Nordstedt
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Colourful images for a colourful shopping mall

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson & Philip Cederman
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Hold the future in your hands

It’s time to Tab and anytime is Tab time. These images are currently appearing as full size ads in all the national newspapers.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Pressbyrån – Åkestam Holst

If you can’t change the product then why not change the message?

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
3D/CGI & RETOUCH: Frederik Tennholt & Roger Sandberg
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Mini – Jung von Matt

Together with Jung von Matt we helped finalise a very different kind of ad for Mini – exclusively for the swedish market. A newly purchased mini could now be delivered in person by the swedish actor Thorsten Flinck. Be careful though – the guy does not even have a driving licence! Press play and see how the final newspaper ad came together!

You can check out Thorsten Flinck as he takes over and actually directs the TV ad that he is about to star in himself. Enjoy!

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
3D/CGI: Roger Sandberg
FINAL ARTWORK: Martin Dickins
PRODUCER: Axel Engström

Karl-Fredrik von Hausswolff

Karl-Fredrik von Hausswolff, renowned for his fantastic pictures of cars, is to join Bsmart. Kalle has previously worked as a photographer at Agent Molly and most recently as Creative Director for the image agency Johnér. As one of Swedens top car photographers, Kalle has captured all the big car names behind his lens: Audi, VW, Volvo, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche, Ford, Mercedes, BMW, Aston Martin… you name it! Being a man of many talents, Kalle also creates great still lifes which you can see here.
Kalle will also be using his experience to develop our skills in 3D/CGI for car imagery.
Welcome to Bsmart, Kalle! We are looking forward to make the magic happen!

Leaseplan Forever

Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Münich, Madrid, Atlanta, Chicago, Stockholm, Rome, Neuss, Geneva, Prague, Amsterdam (revisited), Brüssels (revisited) and return visits to Atlanta and Chicago scheduled for the near future. So what do these cities all have in common? Well, they have all been visited by the Bsmart photography team on behalf of Leaseplan: the world leading car leasing company. Here is a collection of our ‘Best of’ images from the numerous shoots throughout the years since 2005.

New images to relaunch successful ad campaign

Spring has arrived and its time for all the singles out there to find their soulmate. Just as most things in life, two is better than one and that was the driving force behind this highly visual campaign by Fredrik Josefsson, AD at Åkestam Holst. The theme for the campaign was ‘A cup of coffee is seldom alone’ and together with Fredrik we created these twisty, twirly images using a whole mixture of our talents including photo, 3D and retouch. It gave us a lot of enjoyment making these lively and playful images and we hope you like them too – or should we say two.

PHOTO: Hans Carlén, Pekka Stålnacke & Petter Brandt
3D/CGI & RETOUCH: Frederik Tennholt & Johan Svensson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Com Hem – King

PHOTO: Martin Brunn
RETOUCH: Andreas Lübeck
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

7-Eleven – Peacock

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Philip Cederman
PRODUCER: Axel Engström

Bsmart opens its doors in Cape Town

Nine years ago I travelled to Cape Town to study the fantastic light and the beautiful locations that I had heard so much about. I was completely overwhelmed. Three years later I returned for a photo shoot for the book Tutti Frutti that I was planning with my friend Klas Lindstrand. Needless to say, I fell totally in love with South Africa once again. This new love together with a passion for visual imagery was the beginning of an idea for a new Bsmart venture. Commuting backwards and forwards to South Africa over the last few years has given me both time and experience to plan and prepare. Finally, this autumn we will be opening up a studio at Camps Bay i in the centre of Cape Town. All the services we offer in Stockholm will now be available there, on location. Cape Town is even in the same time zone as Stockholm! As well as photography, 3D/CGI and retouch we can help you find locations and local models and even take care of your whole production. Come and join us this winter in the south african sun!
Tomas Lestrup, CEO & Founder

Please contact tomas@bsmart.se for more details regarding our new services in Cape Town.

SaveMyDay – Morris Pinewood

In order to reach the heights of our creativity (or to get the most bang for the buck as he puts it) Mattias Frodlund and Hanna Moe of Morris Pinewood came to us in the very early stages of the international launch of the new group buying site SaveMyDay.com, owned by Metro International.

Mixing business with pleasure

This was the first time working with our new client, Kelly and Pling. Nice to have you aboard! Under the art direction of Måns Hermansson, we set out to produce these images for an in-store campaign showing the Electrolux range of rod mixers and the marvels they can accomplish. Feast your eyes on these smooth operators! Minimalistic food photography at its best.

Kelly and Pling even wanted moving images to complete the stills on this project. This gave us the opportunity to work closely together with our dear friends at Snask Film. Using the same look and feel as the stills Snask produced this beautiful, modern and stylish ad:

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Roger Sandberg
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi
FILM PRODUCTION & POST: Snask Film

My 8 favorites – Judit look-alikes

This is the latest instalment in the Com Hem campaign by the people at King. It carries on the spirit of the fictional twin characters Judit and Judit through eight different look-alikes to illustrate the variety of channels supplied by Com Hem. The original campaign, celebrating Com Hem’s 10th anniversary, premiered in 2009 and has been extremely popular, much due to Judit and Judit’s Youtube cameo.

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Anna Nordstedt
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

LOB design

LOB design are renowned for producing home accessories and table top articles in the latest Scandinavian design so we were more than happy to help create their latest catalogue for this Autumn/Winter 2011. Petra Östh was the stylist for the main images.

RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
DESIGN & FINAL ARTWORK: Martin Dickins
PRODUCER: Tomas Lestrup

Part 2 of the DIY series – Pro Tips and Tricks

I often get asked the question if shooting food takes a lot of special skills and experience. Well, if you do the following… work with the best foodstylists and chefs, use the best and freshest ingredients, make sure you have a beautiful light, be careful with your composition and framing, use the best lenses and cameras, have access to the most talented retouch artists and some wonderful props and locations… then the answer is: Hell no! It’s a piece o’ cake!

PHOTO: Hans Carlén

Groundbreaking technology for the fashion minded

The renowned ad agency King was looking to design a clothing collection for a new campaign for Com Hem (a company usually associated with broadband). Early on in the process we agreed with King to carry out a 3D/photo production as this would be extremely effective and controllable, and would lead to a perfect result in terms of both esthetics and costs. For this exciting project Com Hem teamed up with fashion designer Sahara Widoff to create this years perhaps most futuristic collection made entirely from Com Hem’s flexible cables and accessories.

Talking Letters

In this digital age there is nothing that quite beats getting a personal letter through the post – unless of course it is a bill. This new and fun campaign for Posten was put together by Åkestam Holst’s AD Lars Holthe, PL Maria Ljung and designer Oscar Gardö. All you need is a computer and your voice – you do the talking, the computer does the writing and Posten delivers your letter.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Philip Cederman
FINAL ARTWORK: Martin Dickins
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Future Classics

NK was founded in 1902 and is Stockholm’s most famous luxury department store. This latest campaign is all about celebrating the past and the future by collecting previously sold goods to create an exhibition of NK classics. The future classics being this years NK spring collection. The team from Garbergs including Josephine Fahlstedt were the masterminds behind this project.

PHOTO: Hans Carlén
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Products in harmony

Swissline is a swiss born company providing anti-aging products.The debrief from Swissline’s AD Lara Wyss was to find a creative solution that would reflect the qualities of the specific products. Our 3D artists, retouch artists and photographers sat down to brainstorm some ideas. Some were a little too modern and some were a little too advanced. The final idea and image though was a great success and resulted in an extremely satisfied client.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
3D/CGI & RETOUCH: Johan Svensson
PRODUCER: Tomas Lestrup

State-of-the-art skincare

Is this one of our 3D state-of-the-art splashes you may ask yourself? Nope, not this time. In fact its a mixture of photographed splashes retouched together to create this final image which reflects the precision, purity and quality that are synonymous with Switzerland and the Skincode brand.

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Erik Hemmingson
PRODUCER: Akram Janzi

Front page news!

There was a very nice surprise waiting for us in the inbox this morning. One of our images is covering the front page of the Weekend Journal of The Wall Street Journal. This gives us a great reason to celebrate (as if we need one). So Kalle Gadd (Art Director at Razorfish), when you read this, come on over and join us for some champagne. Cheers!

PHOTO: Pekka Stålnacke
RETOUCH: Johan Svensson
PRODUCER: Tomas Lestrup