This is how the photographer Danby illustrated Choi’s controversial sides

Subject editor Danby Choi is after all a fairly well-photographed guy. In recent weeks, there is hardly a national media that has not portrayed the man behind the newspaper, which sees itself as the country’s leading cultural newspaper.

The photo of Choi that appeared in A magazine last weekend was not quite like other photos we have seen of him recently.

The mouth reflected in water in a glass makes one stop and take a second look at the picture.

Wanted to illustrate the controversial

It all started with a thought.

– He is a person who can say things that can be understood as controversial, says the photojournalist behind the picture, Rodrigo Freitas, to the Journalist.

Freitas is currently a regular freelancer for Aftenposten. When he was commissioned to photograph Choi, he wanted to do something a little different.

Freitas says that he wanted to illustrate Choi’s controversial sides by photographing the editor through a glass of water where his mouth goes in the opposite direction to what is normal.

– I research ideas before I go on an assignment. This time I took inspiration from the fashion photographer Hamza Lafroujiwho has experimented with water in some of his pictures, he says.

The idea was first discussed with a colleague Martin Slottemo Lyngstad before it was tested on another colleague in the office. The preparations consisted of controlling the light. What kind of flash should he use, and how does flash light actually hit a glass of water?

– You often don’t have enough time when you get to the location and have to photograph, this time it was nice to know how everything worked in advance, he says.

Golden light at sunset

When they arrived at Choi’s residence, the sun was setting. Although Freitas usually waits until after the interview is done to take pictures, the light outside said otherwise this afternoon.

– The first thing I do when I enter a room is to see where the windows and clean backgrounds are.

Freitas asked Choi for a small tour of the house.

– When he opened the first door in the house, there was the nice golden light behind that door. Then we had a little bit of time, because we had to take the pictures in the nice light before it got dark.

After taking the environmental photos, the support photos, it was time to initiate the glass idea. Freitas showed Choi the test photos and asked him to get a whiskey glass.

A spotlight, a flash that is shaped like a small tube to focus light on an area, was placed in front of Choi.

– I wanted Danby and the glass illuminated, I wanted the background dark, so that the glass and him got the attention, says Freitas.

Something that didn’t add up

It still took a surprisingly long time to take the glass picture, says Freitas, because even though he had prepared well, something was not right.

– When I took the picture in the office it went great, but when I got there to take the picture, it didn’t work quite as I had planned.

The glass was not the same, which meant that the light reflected the glass in a completely different way than in the office.

– By then I had already used up a good part of my time, so I started to stress, says Freitas, who nevertheless completed the photo shoot.

– It wasn’t until I got back to the office and saw the pictures that I realized that it had gone well.

Communication is important

Although Freitas does what he can to prepare the photo jobs, researches and creates “shot lists” where he has made a plan for which images he wants to come home with, things do not always go as planned.

Because suddenly gold appears behind a door, and suddenly the light shines in the whiskey glass at Vinderen in a slightly different way than in the water glass at the office in Akersgata.

Then it has a lot to say if you have a good tone and are able to communicate with the journalist, says Freitas. In this case, he was at work with Guro Hoftun.

– We spent a lot of time on both photos and interviews, so I think Danby was probably quite tired after we finished.

On question about what Danby Choi Even thinking about the special pictures, he answers:

– Photographers are often asked to do their work down to the barest minimum in terms of time, but if you put in a little more effort, as Freitas does, you get something much bigger. It’s fun to be involved in something conceptual.

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