New workshops

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I hate standing still, and I love teaching workshops, and as 1+1=2 this means that my workshops always change  😎

 

Over the last few months I have had a lot of questions from students about two topics :
1. Compositing
2. Filming with a DSLR

 

I do both on a regular basis but somehow I never post my compositing work, well with a motto that is “why fake it, when you can create it?” that’s obvious. However I also strongly believe that as a Photographer in many situations you better know how compositing works and much to my surprise a lot of Photographers don’t have a clue how to do it very quickly with the new tools in Photoshop, but most of all make it all “work”.


Advanced II workshop = Compositing and more
The theory part is still about making a normal image look better, or in other words how to transform a would be snap shot into something that can be considered a good photograph. In the theory part it starts out with street and sport photography but quickly builds to the parts you really need to make a model shoot rock, from lens choice, expression, adding elements, styling and understanding your light and gear.
After this the workshop changes to the practice part, and that has changed 100%, there is a MUA available and she is working on a theme with our model during the theory. When we’re done we will setup several compositing options and shoot the scene, but it doesn’t stop there… after this I will show a quick composite in Photoshop and also explain how to repeat this yourself.

 

Filming
There is also a new workshop which will start in 2012.
In this intense workshop (aimed at the starting filmer) we will shoot several setups with a model in motion, all students will film their material from different angles and options. There will be a lot of tips and tricks of course during the shoot about : angles, gear to help focus, flycam use etc. etc.

 

After the filming we will immediately start the editing process with Adobe Premiere.
In this part the following options will be explained:
Working with Chroma key, Multicam editing, Syncing audio with PluralEyes, using Red Giant looks to create an unique look and edit it and much much more.

 

I can’t wait to start the new workshop but we still need some preparation model wise, so I will not be doing it before January 2012. The new Advanced II workshop I tested this weekend and was a huge success, so that will be implemented immediately.

 

You can find all the information on : http://www.photography-workshops.eu

 

Winner(s) Expoimaging Rogue competition

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On Google+/Twitter I recently asked for people to post an image and compete to win the amazing Rogue Flashbender from Expoimaging.
The topic was inspiration, or in short tell us a story and show the image of something that really inspires you.
The idea was to select one winner, but I couldn’t….. I mentioned when I started the competition that the story was just as important as the image, and in the end it boiled down to these two, both for completely different reason. It doesn’t mean that one image is not better than the other or that one story is not better than the other. In these cases it’s also a matter of what “hits” you the most, as it always is with inspiration, so I discussed it with Expoimaging and they offered to give away two prices.

 

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Some tips for the video users….

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Just a small blog post today with a tip for all those photographers out there that are also doing motion.
As you may already know I’m a strong supporter for everything motion, the reason I updated my 5D was not because I needed the MKII, I was already shooting with MF by then, but I ran to the store because it did video. At first it was not that good with support for different apertures etc. in fact if you wanted to really use it you would have to use Nikon or other brand lenses, but very soon Canon changed the firmware and ever since I’ve been in love with video from the 5DMKII and can’t wait to see what the future brings. And it’s not just me, a lot of people are filming with the 5DMKII and much more active than me, so probably for those this blogpost will contain some old news, however for the ones starting out, or if you did not already know this, this can be an interesting blogpost.

 

To be honest I’ve been doing video for a long time, it started for me with tapes and in the PC the old FAST capture cards, talk about a hassle to get the video into the PC, later with the firewire cameras it became a bit better but still it was not like today, it really took some knowledge and most of all patience to get a nice video. We almost forget those old days of 24 hour renderings for a simple effect, today we just throw everything in a timeline and the software will just run it without rendering and most effects are real time or almost realtime.

 

On the Mac I started with Final Cut Pro and was one of the first I think that was really into Final Cut ProX, well let’s say I was one of the only ones that did not have a lot to complain, I did miss however multi cam support, and when Apple “forgot” to put this in the latest update and the possible delivery date is somewhere in 2012, it was time for me to switch to Adobe Premiere 5.5 and to be real honest I never looked back ever since. As a Final cut pro user it’s a bit of getting to know the interface but after that it’s like the update that Final Cut Pro X had to be (although I do miss the magnetic time line at times).

 

Because I made the switch to video more seriously I’m of course also looking into software that can support the things that I do, and I found the following companies that really rock and I want to introduce them in this blog post with also a small review of the software plugins.

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WorldWidePhotoWalk 2011 Kampen

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During the Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk we did in Kampen Wendy, Evita and Annewiek did some “backstage” videos, today you can see the video on the blog. Enjoy.