Yesterday you were able to see the video from our Help portrait day in Emmeloord. And as promised today you can see some backstage images and my opinion about my first nationwide Help portrait organization.
Our team
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During the Photoshop world dates I met Jeremey Cowart and we started talking about photography etc. but also about his project Help Portrait. I did hear about this before of course but did not participate actively myself, but for 2011 I wanted to be part of this incredible movement and decided to try to organize Help portrait for the whole of Netherlands.
We started out with a website http://www.help-portret.nl and a forum where photographers could add themselves to help out, and to be honest I was deeply moved by all the responses we got the first few weeks, we even got the original .nl website from the original owners who had done Help portrait on a smaller scale the year before. From that point on it grew and grew and I’m so proud of all the people who made Help portrait so big this year in the Netherlands, we have achieved a lot of local publicity but even been on national TV, we got our own theme song from Dutch singer Sarina Kay.
Of course I also did organize a Help portrait location in my home town Emmeloord. Here you can see a video from our day. But make sure to read tomorrows blog with loads of images and more stories…..
One of the things that I always see as an eye opener for people struggling with getting forward in Photography is pointing out what you can achieve with lights only. And to be honest that’s not that much. Yes you can make stunning images with great light, you can light models in a way that other people maybe aren’t able to pull off, but in the end for me that doesn’t make the shot. For me a good shot is carried not only by technique but also by pose, expression and of course technique but technique to be honest is just a small part of the total package.
To experiment a bit with this topic I asked Stephanie to work with me during a very quick photoshoot and just only concentrate on poses, so we used a very simple light setup (one light) and let Stephanie really be the center point of attention with her poses, and of course we also played a bit with some of her clothing like for example the shoes, just to create a fashion image you normally don’t see. As you can see in this series it’s very easy to shoot a model just standing there, but it becomes increasingly harder to find the curves, poses etc. that fit the model. This is also why I always strongly believe in the fact that if you pay a model because she is better than the models you normally shoot on TFP (Time For Print) you will get a lot better in your photography, they can teach you so very much just by showing you the poses, and you can build from there.
Today some of my favorite shots from last weeks glamour workshop with Floor.
Do remember that some of these images contain lingerie and might not be always safe for work areas.
