How easy it can be….

One of the most asked questions must be the one of “How do you get creative”.
Well to be honest I don’t really know, I’ve been shooting people for quite some time now and somehow I just will wait for the location and somehow it hits me on the location what to do, so in new locations I’m actually never that worried…. this drives some people mad because when they ask me what I want to do I always answer “We will see when I’m there”, I do need some things of course like certain strobes but even with those I’m rather flexible. Maybe it’s because one of mottos is “Do it with what you have”.

So how about locations where you have shot many times before…
During my workshops I love certain setups, and although I’ve shot them many, many, many times I still want them to look fresh and interesting for the people that follow my work online, it would be rather boring to see the same shots over and over again.

So you have to figure something out that makes it fresh.
Well that’s actually not as hard as soon as you start to realize something.
A background is just….. well a background……
A scene is just….. well a scene…..
As soon as you start to realize that it’s all about “mood”, “Styling”, “model” etc. things get a lot easier (or not), remember the great names like Avedon, Newton etc. they have done whole series against a white/gray background (also much more elaborate setups of course) and even if you would buy a book with just those shots you will probably love everyone of those shots….

When I started out with modelphotography one of the first things I thought was that every shoot had to be different, new lights, new props, new colors, new…. pfff it drove me (and my wife) totally mad, I bought more props than my studio could hold at that time and I was one of the familiar faces at the local second hand dump store. However the more I looked at my shots I thought “this is not interesting enough, ok there is a new chair, we added some smoke etc but …. it’s not there” and than at one point I realized that I needed something else.

I started using the white or black background and asked my models to add stuff to their clothing (weird stuff), add stuff to their hair (like a cup and saucer), when I started shooting this I got into the more story telling part of photography and to be honest I never looked back. A little bit later on I started adding motion and searched for hairdressers, extreme makeup artists, bodypainters etc. all to focus more on the story than on the backgrounds and props.

Now during workshops I ask my models the same.
We all know the workshops where a model (often undresses) stands in front of the camera and does her/his thing in a jeans and tanktop (or bikini or nude). Well for me that’s boring, sometimes for a workshop it’s enough but in the end I will not use those images myself.

Now I hear you thinking… “Pffff my models don’t know what to do”, well and that’s true.
You should never just leave it up to the model, be creative yourself.
The shots in this blogpost for example were all done with natural light (except the last portrait which was shot with one Canon 580EXII through a translucent screen) the thing that makes it interesting for me is the model and the things she does with her dress. And trust me, when you ask your model if she can borrow a wedding dress, almost all models can. Especially the ones with the longer material can be amazing when there is a little wind and the model just starts playing with the material.

Remember that you can have the most beautiful light, the best models, the best location….. but if there is nothing going on you end up with a “blah” image.
When you start thinking about story telling, motion and expression you can probably score a great picture in almost any location.