Workshop Belgium day 2 EL PASO September 18th 2010

On September 18th it was time for the workshop in El Paso.
El Paso is a small western town (well actually more a street) close to the Dutch border in Belgium. When Johnny asked me if I would like to teach part of the workshop there my response was without hesitation YES. Let’s be honest what is more inspiring than teaching a workshop or doing a photoshoot in a street that is doubling as a filmset…… I know not much.

The only think we needed was good weather, and that was going to be a problem, the weather forecast was Rain, Rain, Rain and then some Rain. However I don’t know how it always play out but always during workshops I’m lucky as it seems, and that day was no exception. In the morning it looked really bad but the more we got to El Paso the weather was looking better (and it was a 15 minute drive), during the day itself it cleared up so much that it could almost be regarded as a cool summers day. In total we only had some slight rain for maybe 10-15 minutes but not even enough to stop the shoots.

So how does a workshop like this look ?

The first thing I always have to figure out is what models would fit a workshop.
Some people might think I just mail some models and we work with whoever takes the job, and although that is true for some workshops, in this case it was not. I started a rather large casting call a while ago to find a second model because my initial choose was Nadine (who is brilliant for setups like this), I did not yet know what I was looking for so I let the mails roll in and somehow I kept looking for the right model till actually for my doing very close to the workshops (normally I have my models selection done 3-4 weeks before the actual date), and with a reason as it seemed. Most models that responded were of course lovely and pretty ladies (most of them anyway) but we also had some male models, but somehow they did not fit the ideas I had, until Koen responded…. he fitted exactly what I had in mind. We started mailing some ideas and he could arrange some props and the proper clothing. Remember that choosing the right persons for something like this is VERY important (say vital). We could have choosen a beautiful model (or 2) with some standard fashion but what you end up with is just a pretty girl in a nice scene but they don’t connect. And let’s be clear when you shoot in a scene like this it HAS to fit.

So what was the general idea ?
I’m a real movie lover, I love horror, action, comedy and westerns (to be complete I love almost every genre) in my photography I also love to bring some drama, or filmic elements. I think that’s why I have such a strong bias towards lighting the sets, I’m always hunting for more than just a simple photograph (although I love that also).
El Paso is of course the perfect area/scene to go for some real filmic results.

Setup 1, the graveyard
Don’t leave home without a smoke machine I tell people sometimes, but to be honest I hardly use them on location, don’t ask me why but I guess I don’t want it to be a gimmick. In El Paso however the scenery just SCREAMED smoke machine !!!!!!
So for the first setup we used two Elinchrom Rangers (one RX and one Quadra) fitted with maxispots (one gridded) and the smoke machine operated by Eddy (who’s blog you can always find on these pages about this day). The outfit fitted the scene perfectly and Nadine knows how to pose to bring the whole scene to life.

Setup 2, the flagpost
I always tell my students to show where you have been, do not shoot close ups when you can include a bit of the scene, or in other words, make sure that people know where a shot was taken. Some people take this to literally and will shoot only wide angle…. well let’s be honest close ups can work great and I strongly believe that not every scene is fit for a “wider” view. In this case I opted for the flagpost in the middle of the street, by first showing the whole scene it was very clear that this was not working. After that I started to close in on Koen and the students could see that in this case the more close up looks are much stronger. I believe that as a photographer you should always analyze the scene and know which view works best were, the only way to learn this is by doing it both ways. In the end I ended up with some nice shots from Koen and demonstrated also the use of smoke. Without smoke the shots were nice but when we added the smoke in different layers…. well judge for yourself.

Setup 3, the rocking chair
This was just a quick exercise in choosing angles. Lots of photographers just stay on one angle and ruin a lot of great shots by reflections or simply put being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I often start out with an interesting shot that looks nice but is greatly improved by just changing positions. As an extra we added Koen to the background.

Setup 4, the bankjob
The fourth setup was much more advanced.
In this setup it was time to really play around with some movie like imagery.
We choose the bank for this shot of Koen.
I wanted to create a day to night effect and for that I used an Elinchrom Ranger RX with Maxispot and grid on the model, but to make it convincing I also wanted to have some light from the bank, for that we used the Elinchrom Quadra that lit up the window. Also in this setup I did some shots with just the natural light. Also with this I strongly believe that as a photographer you should not only rely on what you set up as the shot, you should always look for a way to maximize the setup, in this case using two cameras, a Canon 5DMKII for the natural light shots and the Phase One DF with the Leaf AptusII7 for the shots with strobes. The first shot in this blog post (all the way on top) was one of the natural light shots I took. Here are in order first two shots with the strobes and after that some natural light shots from the same setup.

Setup 5, the gallows
Sometimes I wonder what goes on in the head of my models and me when we thing of stuff, but in this case I’m just glad that we don’t always think in safe setups :D. It’s very very hard to choose a favorite shot of this workshop but without a doubt this has to be one of my favorites and maybe technically one of the most interesting because almost everything is in here. Measuring for the sky, adding strobes on two people, keeping the strobes out of the frame, making the right composition, posing both models, expressions of the models and styling pfff you would almost go mad just thinking about it…. instead I decided to just do it.

For this setup I used the Elinchrom Ranger RX again with the Maxispot and grid on Nadine, one of the students held the Quadra up high with the other Maxispot. A lot of people ask me why I shoot medium format while I say during all the workshops that the photographer takes the image and not the gear…. well this setup is one of the reasons I do use MF cameras. In fact with the new Leaf Shutter lenses I can now shoot on 1/800 (or in some cases 1/1600) this is incredibly beneficial for shots like these. However for the workshop I decided to stay at the normal 1/125 sync speed, however to make it work I had to drop to ISO50 and use f22. This meant that only a few students could take the same shot on ISO100 f32 or ISO50 f22, for the others we had to lower the strobe output so they could use ISO100 and f22. The results however always please me, call me a drama lover but the mix of strobes and sunlight always is something I absolutely love.

Setup 6, the portrait
For this setup I used only the Maxispot with grid. This setup I use a lot during workshops, seminars and demos and is aimed to teach my students to control contrast by moving around or moving the model around, it’s really not that difficult to do but somehow it’s the most difficult to use correctly.

Setup 7, Nadine at the tree
For the final setup Nadine choose the tree in front of the “general store” close to the “saloon”.
It’s an exercise in choosing angles and using an accent light as shaper for dimension, looks simple on the photo but trust me… this is rather hard to shoot exactly right.

As with most photoshoot now I’ve also edited a small backstage video with the iPhone 4 which you can watch here (make sure to go to 720P).
Feel free to comment and share.

Met dank aan Johnny van Strijdonck voor de organisatie en perfecte verzorging
Nadine Stephan : http://www.nadinestephan.nl
Koen van Breugel : http://www.koenvanbreugel.nl/