Here’s a handful of photos taken from various assignments as of late.

A small store specializing in car racing books and miniature car models had a small Ferrari gathering at their store. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/9 1/200sec, ISO160.

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Nicolas is a huge basketball prospect in Denmark. At the age of 17 he has been around the National team development system. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/10 1/250sec, ISO100.

click to enlarge

Danish Band Big Fat Snake closed the one day music festival - Rockfesten. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 120mm, f/2.8 1/400sec, ISO640.

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‘Greve’s’ Women’s Marching band performs at the annual city festival. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 200mm, f/2.8 1/640sec, ISO200.

click to enlarge

A ferris wheel at the annual city festival. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 200mm, f/25 1/320sec, ISO100.

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Students celebrating their final day in school with the traditional water and shaving foam fight. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 98mm, f/2.8 1/1000sec, ISO100.

click to enlarge

Sometimes I can’t help but think what impact we have as a newspaper. Do we make a difference? I’d like to think so. Last week my thoughts were strongly proved.

An Iraqi family here in Denmark was about to be homeless. They could no longer stay in the house they rented. And with a father mentally ill due to torture from their time in Iraq wasn’t able to do anything about the situation. The family’s 15 year old daughter was basically who ran the show at home while attending school.

We brought the story about the family in our paper and within a day or two the Iraqi family was saved from a life in the gutter. Somebody called us telling that they could offer the family to stay at their house. There was plenty of room for the family. It’s so nice to see that some people are still concerned about others.

Here’s a photo of the daughter I shot for the story.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 27mm, f/4 1/1000sec, ISO125. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

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Around Monday last week I received a phone call.
Voice says: “Hey Brian, our photographer is on vacation. Would you be able to cover the Cup Final thursday?”

Without much hesitation I replied with a “Yes of course!”

The Cup Final is a nation wide soccer tournament where lower tier teams compete with the top division teams. It’s not the National Championship, but the winner gets a ticket to the European UEFA Cup next year. Brondby the local soccer team where I live is so far down the standing they looked to not make it to the European tournaments for the second straight year which is not satisfying what so ever.

Not only did I get to shoot top level soccer (The final was between two top division teams), I got to shoot the local soccer team where I live. And it was played in the National stadium where the Danish National team plays their home games.

Brondby won the game 3-2 after being ahead 1-0, 2-1 and scoring their last goal to make it 3-2 with about five minutes to go.
The fans got so excited. I was sitting in the same end as the Brondby fans and when they scored their second goal to make it 2-1 I almost got bombed with beer. A container hit the dirt right next to me and a spray of beer flew up and soaked my sock and left side of my pants. Why would anybody toss an almost full cup of beer? I’d empty it up instead!!

Anyway here’s a slideshow with sound and photos from the very exciting game! Click the image to launch.

Death in the family has kept my mind on anything else but this blog. Now that everything is back to normal (as normal as it can get) I figured it was time to give a little update on what I’ve been doing..

A couple of concerts, a couple of soccer games, some handball, a demonstration and other stuff is among what I’ve been pointing my camera at.

I made a small gallery with captions in it with some of the most recent stuff I’ve been doing.

Click image to launch.

What an interesting week it has been. Two car crashes, snow and the rehearsals for a hip hop theatrical play. That’s just some of the stuff I’ve been covering this past week.

I actually started out covering a car crash on the very first day I worked for the paper. Since then I can only recall arriving at a crash scene maybe twice where the cars and stuff was still there. This past week I was called out to two major crashes.

Friday (last week) some guy had to dodge an old woman crossing the street with her dog to avoid hitting her. He ended up hitting a light post and running over three small trees before coming to a hold when hitting a fourth tree.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 70mm, f/2.8 1/400sec, ISO250. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

A front view of the car shows the damage.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/100sec, ISO250. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Monday as I arrived at the paper I got a phone call a colleague who had seen fire trucks and ambulances fly down the street past our office. The police scanner didn’t really give anything so I just drove in the direction I was told the fire trucks was going. I had a pretty good idea where it could be and I was right.

I never heard what happened but from what I saw at the scene it looked like somebody ran a red light broadsiding a car, plowing it into a traffic signal post.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 23mm, f/4 1/800sec, ISO200. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

I woke up Wednesday morning around 6.45am, having an assignment at 7.45am. I looked out the window and saw white trees and snow covering the grass and parking lot. My boss has been bugging me for ‘winter’ shots almost for as long as I can remember. Last year’s winter was basically only a couple of days. It’s hard to get good winter (read: pictures with snow or ice) shots when it’s over cast. So I was waiting for a sunny day with snow. You can’t exactly buy that on Ebay so when I saw that the sun was out and everything was basically what I was waiting for, it was all about getting out of the door as fast as possible before the snow melted away. On the way to the morning assignment the snow began falling from the trees as it was melting, so no time to chat at the first assignment. It was just getting it done and on my way again. I got what I wanted.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 70mm, f/2.8 1/1250sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 70mm, f/2.8 1/1600sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Thursday I was assigned to cover the rehearsals to a hip hop theatrical play that a local boy is in. It was pretty cool. I enjoy watching those guys dance!

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/320sec, ISO1250, flash fired. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 23mm, f/4 1/320sec, ISO1250, flash fired. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

This is the local kid. I figured it would be a good idea to shoot a solo shot of him.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 28mm, f/4 1/320sec, ISO1250, flash fired. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

That’s about the words that was said to me Friday night when I wanted to shoot some photos during a fight between two fan groups during the Danish Ice Hockey Cup final (not the championship game).

A scrum broke out during the second intermission. A group of fans from Roedovre (the team I covered) was standing outside the arena talking, drinking, having a cigarette or whatever and a group of fans from Odense was standing 15-20 feet from them. They were yelling stuff back and forth and one of the guys from the Odense group wanted to get a hold of the Roedovre fans. Security personnel kept the guy away but it didn’t keep a fight from breaking out. A cup of beer flew through the air and all the beer plus the plastic container hit a girl square in the face. Right after that a group of Odense fans started chasing down the Roedovre fans who were running for their lives.

I followed the people and got my camera ready to shoot some photos of the fighting when I was approached by to guys who ran past me. They turned around stopped me and said something like “We’ll kick your ass and break your fucking camera if you take any pictures”.

Seeing how they basically jumped innocent people, I decided not to test them and kept away. It was dark so I wasn’t able to just shoot the stuff from a distance.

After the game was done, more fighting broke out outside the arena. On my way back to my car carrying two cameras, my 300mm and a bag over my shoulders I met up with a colleague. He told me to start taking pictures of all the stuff happening. Two police officers and one of the security personnel from the arena was standing right next to us and the security guy told me that “if you take a single picture I’ll trash your camera!”.

I’m baffled by this. The police officers did nothing. NOTHING. I’m in my full right to shoot whatever I want in the street basically. Being a member of the danish union of Journalists I have a press card stating that I can actually get behind police lines. Not that there were any police lines or anything, but he couldn’t keep me from doing my job. This episode has been reported to the association of sports journalists by the way. I can’t do anything about fans telling me stuff like that. But he was security and had no right to keep me from doing my job, which was basically what he did …

With so many people in the streets and my car still over 100 meters away I didn’t want to just put down all my gear to shoot some photos though I almost did. I wanted to shoot a photo of the security guy just to document what he looked like, but they were busy arresting people and what not.. So I didn’t take any pictures..

As a guy told me….

“The most important thing is that you walked away from it with no broken bones and your gear still intact. Nobody says thank you after words anyway.”

I’ve been busy not updating the blog, so I figured it was time to spam you with a series of photos from recent assignments.

Every year the city and local track and field club arrange a race. This was the start of the 5km run. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
(Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f2.8L USM @ 200mm, f/2,8 1/500sec, ISO500)

Road construction resulted in a broken gas pipe, so the fire department and police blocked off a longer section the street. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
(Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f2.8L USM @ 70mm, f/2,8 1/800sec, ISO125)

Teachers might have to run faster in the future. A potential budget cut in the teachers budget, will not allow for payment for extra hours. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
(Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f4L USM @ 26mm, f/4 1/125sec, ISO250)

The Dane Mikkel Bodker was selected fifth overall in the CHL import Draft by the Kitchener Rangers who plays in the Ontario Hockey League. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
(Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f4L USM @ 33mm, f/22 1/250sec, ISO100)

A rally car blazes past spectators during a local Rally Sprint. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
(Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f4L USM @ 40mm, f/20 1/50sec, ISO100)

Skjold goaltender picks the wrong side on a penalty kick and can only watch the ball go in the net. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
(Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2.8 1/2500sec, ISO400)

A shakespeare comedy theater show. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
(Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2.8 1/400sec, ISO640)

I was assigned to shoot a reception right after New Year. A new local court is opening and by danish tradition a reception is held, and hotdogs and beverages are served.Receptions aren’t really all that interesting to shoot. Just people standing around eating hotdogs but upon my arrival to the building, I saw camera crews from Denmarks two nationwide TV stations there. Apparently the Minister of Justice was there to give a speech about the new police jurisdiction.I thought that would probably make a good picture for the story since she’s the Minister of Justice. Unfortunately the camera crew vans blocked the view, so all I could do was shoot her from the side.The Minister of Justice, Lene Espersen, is being interviewed by Danish nationwide TV. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)(Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, 70-200mm @ 200mm, 1/800sec, f/2.8, ISO400)

If you’re one of the few who visit this blog on a regular basis, you’ll probably have read about my January 1st assignment covering the evacuation of two buildings. If not you can read it here.Anyway a series of the photos were posted to the newspaper website on Wednesday morning (January 3rd). That same day around 8 PM I got a phone call from the photo editor of Berlingske Tidne which is among the biggest nationwide newspapers in the country.My first thought was “What the hell is she calling me for?” A job offer? Didn’t sound realistic to me at all. And I’ve never heard of a picture editor calling people at 8 pm to sell me a subscription to the paper. Quite amazing how much stuff went through my mind before she started her next sentence.Turns out she had visited the newspaper website and saw my photos from the evacuation. She was interested in buying one of the photos for their Sunday edition where they were doing a two page story on the whole deal in the newspaper section “The Magazine Sunday”. They were bringing a total of three photos for the story and wanted my photo for the story.15 minutes later I had mailed the photo to the photo editor.The photo they/she wanted, was of the old lady getting escorted/helped to a bus by a fireman. Here it is on print in the newspaper.This photo was posted in Berlingske Tidne on Sunday January 7th, 2007.I believe my boss had intentions of brining that exact photo in our own paper but ended up using a different photo. He was really cool about the paper wanting to buy the photo and all and congratulated me for selling it to a major nationwide newspaper.He ended up choosing the photo of the same old lady getting escorted by the fireman but where they are shot from the front with a telephoto lens.The paper I work for ran a center page double spread focus story on the evacuation including an interview with one of of the residence and other information regarding the buildings.A view of the two center pages with the story and photos.My newspaper also ran another photo I shot but hadn’t posted on this site.

First of all, Happy New Year to the 4 people or so who reads this blog.I had barely turned on the TV yesterday after waking up from a pretty eventful New Years party before I got a phone call from the boss telling me, he was sorry to say this, but I had to get dressed and go out on an assignment.January 1st happened to be a day with pretty gusty winds and two local apartment buildings were in danger of collapsing due to the decent storm that was going on.So I got dressed and got on my way. Unfortunately it was already close to three PM so it was already getting dark which is also visible in the shots I took. Around 3:45 PM I wasn’t even getting shutter speeds over 1/200 sec at ISO 1250! 1/160 of a sec or whatever was about what I could get.So unfortunately most of the shots taken with the 70-200 didn’t turn out all too great.Anyway here’s a few of the shots from yesterday.