A day on the road with Nadine Guestblog
Today a guest blog by Eddie who assisted Nadine during the Belgium workshop on September 17th in El Paso.
‘A day on the road with Nadine Stephan’
Written by her personal assistant, a.k.a. Eddy the Eagle.
6 AM – *beep* *beep* Argh! There goes that dreaded alarm clock! Snooze time…
6:25 AM – Time to rub the sand out of our eyes and grab a shower.
6:48 AM – Loading up the car. It’s packed with loads of clothes, make-up kits and shoes… Lots of shoes.. Nadine brought some of her own clothes and a few awesome haute couture dresses supplied by Ajnemra.
7:00 AM – Time kick the tires and light the fires, blast-off to Wuustwezel Belgium!
8:35 AM – Grabbing some brekkie at a petrol station.
9:15 AM – Arrival at El Paso cowboy village and meeting the famed Frank Doorhof and his number one supporter: Annewiek.
9:26 AM – Prepping for the first set, Nadine used a black dress and I cut up one of her old dresses to add some details to her hat. While I was at it, I cut the sleeves of that old dress as well..
10:05 AM – Shoot in front of the El Paso Graveyard. While I was watching I tried to make myself usefull and I wielded the smoke machine like there was no tomorrow. In that proces, the smoke machine constantly overheated, which gave me the opportunity to warm up Nadine while the smoke machine was cooling down. 😉 Frank showed us the results straight away on his macbook and I was stunned. The smoke added a gorgeous dramatic effect!
11:10 AM – Getting ready for the next set, inspired by Pocahontas.
11:32 AM – Pocahontas with natural lightning. Frank told us about natural lightning and closure times. He also gave an important tip to shoot loads of pictures with natural lightning. I quote: ‘there’s bound to be a lot of crappy ones but somewhere in between you just might find that one picture you’re looking for!’
12:11 PM – Break time, we all had a (enormous) sandwich and a drink. I noticed everybody was getting more and more excited. Lot’s of photographic mumbo-jumbo tech talk as well. Whilst watching all that gear I was reminded that my 3.2 megapixel cellphone camera was like showing up with a Lada at a Ferrari meeting in Saint Tropez.
12:18 PM – Frank brought his own masseuse! Guess that’s one of the perks of beeing a hard-working photographer?
13:40 PM –Prepping Nadine for the next set, Nadine used the Icey haute coutoure dress for this shoot. I assisted with making snow clouds that I stuck in her hair. From personal assistant to hairdresser. Wowzers, I’m really moving up in this world!
14:10 PM – The ice queen warming up for her shoot
14:28 PM – Frank wanted to create some filmographic shots, so in this session he decided to use the gallow that was the center stage of El Paso.
15:37 PM – Nadine used some of her own clothes for her last set, she went for a casual look on this one and mounted a tree that she spotted earlier this day. (I tell you, this girl really is a tree-hugger)
16:05 PM – Frank told us about light setups and showed us how the Elinchrom Quadra works from a larger distance. He showed us the effect of using one big light source. After that he added the Elinchrom Ranger RX and showed us the effect of accent lightning.
During this last shoot Frank kept hammering on at his ‘students’: It’s all about the right angle people!!
17:00 PM – The end of the day. I had a great day and got a great inside view of Frank’s photography workshops and in the proces I got to know how Nadine spends her days when she’s on the road.
I wondered how the rest of the real ‘students’ enjoyed the day so I asked around and heard nothing but positive remarks. The consensus: it’s very rewarding to learn and apply the theory ‘on-the-spot’ with Frank’s guidance. Now if that doesn’t sound like a sales pitch..
I spend the day with a great photographer, friendly people and a gorgeous model! Which I got to take home at the end of the day. How’s that for happy endings?
It’s awesome to do these kind of workshops…
It’s even more awesome that the person that I love having around me most wants to share this with me!
Besides that, it’s quite special that people that don’t have any photographic background get enthousiastic and inspired by Frank.
xx Nadine
Nice inside-view of a photoshoot! It’s fun to read this from a non-pro perspective 😉
Hi Nadine,
Thanks a lot for your patience with us, inexperienced students.
I hope you are not getting sick after the freezing conditions on the graveyard.
To me it was a fun but also odd experience. I’m used to photograph dogs, and know how to talk to the owners and work with the dogs. But finding the right angle and talking to a human model feels like a step further and a lot more difficult.
Thanks for your efforts! I’ll try to get the pics a soon as possible approved by Frank. You cab get the high res files.
Kurt
“and I wielded the smoke machine like there was no tomorrow”
“Lot’s of photographic mumbo-jumbo tech talk as well. Whilst watching all that gear I was reminded that my 3.2 megapixel cellphone camera was like showing up with a Lada at a Ferrari meeting in Saint Tropez.”
who is this guy who wrote this? this is freaking hilarious! most def should do more blogging. or even better, get a column somewhere!
i think this is a great way to give a resume of the day, without getting a boring sum up of things =)