Lens Profile | FE 85mm f/1.4 GM II

The cold steel of the Little Belt Bridge isn’t the first place you would picture female singer KRAMMER with a style that is a mix of jazz, R&B and pop, but that is precisely the juxtaposition that Danish photographer Morten Rygaard wanted. “Her musical style is a beautiful cocktail, but we wanted her publicity photos to stand out, so we went in the opposite direction,” reveals Morten.

Whilst the location and KRAMMER clothes were all planned ahead of the shoot, one thing that you can never rely on is the weather. “It was a windy day, sometimes it was blowing really hard, with rain pouring in between,” Morten recalls, “but between the rain, the sun came out and it just touched her face perfectly. Then it would start again, and we would disappear to take shelter in our cars and wait for the next opportunity. On a shoot like this, I might use flash, but I couldn’t get it out due to the rain. So, this time all the images were lit perfectly by the sun.”

Morten was shooting with his Sony Alpha 1 II, and FE 85mm f/1.4 GM II lens - a combination that helps to spark his creativity. “When I first got the 85mm in my hand, I think it got me to be more creative because of bokeh. I just fell totally in love with that. When I use this lens, it's nearly always at f/1.4, just to get the most bokeh I can. And it's 100% sharp every single time.”

That creative choice to shoot wide open and to create a beautiful, blurred background has a practical, as well as aesthetic, reason. “A lot of my work, including these shots, is for album covers, magazines, tour posters. You need to have negative space where designers can write text, such as tour dates. It is really, really important that you consider that space in an image.”

Having worked in the industry for 35 years, Morten has witnessed the emergence of technology that would have been almost unimaginable when he began. “It can be funny when I look through my lenses from years ago. It was difficult to achieve 100% sharpness using an 85mm lens at f/1.4. And it isn’t just the quality of the lens, but how it works with the camera's autofocus. Sony has developed this incredible technology, and with Eye AF, I get portraits that are 100% in focus all of the time, even at f/1.4, with edge-to-edge sharpness. I can place a subject at the edge of the frame, and it will be crystal clear. I'm going to be using this lens for many, many, many, many years.”

Another aspect of the 85mm and Alpha 1 II combination is that it allows Morten to shoot quickly. “I like to work fast,” he says, “and sometimes you have to because you may only have a very short period with the artist. The autofocus, Face Detection and EyeAF all make that possible.”

On the day of the shoot Morten took a variety of different shots within the given time. Whilst most were taken on the bridge, some also featured it in the background. “We had her walk out onto this little jetty into the water,” remembers the Danish photographer. “You can see the bokeh of the bridge in the background. Then I used a smoke bomb to create a haze on the water, just to make it look a little mysterious. Then we got lucky. The clouds broke and the sun came out with these beautiful white clouds in the sky.”

The resulting image is a powerful portrait that complements the others perfectly, creating a series that showcases the artist’s unique character. “I always want to find a person's strength when I photograph them,” says Morten. “I want to show their confidence, I want to show their personality, and what I really always try and show is how powerful they are.”

“That is the way I think and how I try to approach my portrait photography. I try to find a way we can do something special together that showcases what they're standing for and everything they represent. I meet so many interesting people, and that human connection is so important to me.”