“We are airsofters and we like ourselves.” How’s that for a statement? We like to invest a lot in our gear, our loadouts and our equipment and we just love it when pictures are being taken of us and  looking incredibly awesome as usual. If those pictures make us look like total badasses, well… it's just a plus!

That’s why you will find more and more photographers in airsoft fields, with the occasional situation where you have more photographers than actual airsofters running around.

Every square inch of the field and every stitch of our tactical gear is being captured and thanks to the influence of social media, airsoft photographers have become genuine superstars and are very welcome guests during events.

Now, someone has to be the devil's advocate (that someone being me) and someone has to say that most of the airsoft photos have become very cliché --- the airsofter running, the airsofter kneeling, the airsofter pointing his airsoft-thingie to another airsofter. If you have seen 1 picture, you have seen them all, it's just the people on those pictures that change.

Yes, I agree, but what else can you do ? There is such a thing as a limit to what can be innovated in the art of taking airsoft photos...or not?

All of a sudden, this Dutch guy starts popping up during airsoft events. (Let me be clear that I have absolutely NO issues with Dutch people AT ALL! A country that has a queen like that cannot all that bad, no?)

At first glance, he somewhat a geeky dude, with a godzilla-like backpack and way too much gear on his back to be healthy.

What’s even worse is that his backpack isn’t even filled with BBs, Green Gas, or MREs but with lenses, cameras, light-stuff and other nerdish looking tools.

This dude goes by the name “Johnny” and when Johnny starts setting up his gear, his mobile studio and whatever else he has hiding in his backpack with Mary Poppins capacities, airsofters start springing into action even with the lack of Systema, Madbull and other HQ airsoft parts.

But then something happens, a genuine transformation. When Johnny takes position behind his cameras, he turns into this awesome-picture-taking-mammoth with nothing but hardcore awesomeness burning in his eyes.

Anyone who has the courage to take place at the other side of his lens will be photographed in such a way that even Chuck Norris on his most masculine day will look like a little girl. Every picture that is being delivered by Johnny is a work of art and you will fall in love with the dude/dudette who’s on that photo.

“Yeah, its all photoshop” is THE most common remark he gets when he appears on a new airsoft skirm, and indeed, he uses a lot of photoshop for details and finishing touches. BUT! The pictures he gets straight out his camera are HOT... with his photoshop skills he makes them pornographic-level hot.

The man is a perfectionist as never seen before.

Still not convinced ? No worries.

Just look at the pictures he has taken of me:

Face it, I’m not the best looking kid in the block (in such a way that female airsofters usually unregister from the events where I will be participating) and yet, he managed to deliver photos that are so extremely awesome that I take 15 minutes of “me” time with those photos on a daily basis.

These, my appreciative readers, are no longer photos. These are action-packed blockbuster movies compressed into 1 image who tells it all!

Johnny goes through life as “The Airsoft Experience Photographer”, a title which does not give him enough credit for his work.

He can be booked for private projects and for airsoft events all over the globe and take it from me, the dude is a very down-to-earth type of guy who will answer all of your questions without any hesitation.

Check out his facebook on https://www.facebook.com/airsoftphotographer.

And check out his website via: http://www.airsoftphotographer.com/.

Skirm on!

Christophe “Lucid Mind”
www.lucidmind.be
www.ultraoperator.com