Model of the corn……

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Ok that was a corny remark…..
Well ok that also 😀
So let’s get serious.

 

A lot of times people ask me what they need on location, 2 strobes, 3 strobes?
Well as you can read in many of my blogposts I always say… “whatever you need”
Now that sounds weird because how do you know what you need?

 

In essence you have to understand the light you’re using to know what you need, I always advise to start out with natural and only when you need a different look add strobes, in this case we wanted something more dramatic than natural light and one thing to do this is to lower the ambient light output and put a little bit of strobe on the model. In this case a very cheap small square softbox from Elinchrom fitted to a Quadra ranger RX. How much you lower the ambient is all up to you, how dark do you want the sky to be so to say. My rule in these kind of setups is that I also want to see some detail in the area the model is posing in, so I metered the corn and the sky and based my setting on this, the results (and setup) you can see in the next images.

Roosmarijn Augustus 13 2013-190-Edit

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Natural light plus strobes = awesomeness

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When working on location often people make the choice to use strobes…. or not.
I strongly believe however that you should always use both.
By making use of totally different looks during a photoshop you will have a much more varied end result than when using only strobes or only natural light. People who read this blog daily have seen me saying this before, so let’s add something more today.

 

During the all my workshops I try to trigger my students to use light in many different ways/angles and this way controlling the contrast in a shot, or in short, chance the look of the shot. Now one could say “On location I have to work fast, so I don’t have time to move my lights constantly” well… I agree, but you actually don’t have to move your lights, when you move yourself you can get some amazing results, especially when you shoot in a scene where there is an interesting view from all angles.

 

Take for example the following shot.

Susanna Augustus 17 2013-26-Edit

I used two Sony strobes for this on full power to create a day to night effect. Now there is not much wrong with this shot, it’s pretty nice, the pose is nice and of course the model…. well is amazing :D, however when I move myself to a different angle we get something that I personally would label as “much more interesting”

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Roosmarijn at a skatepark

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Today a few shots from a session I did with Roosmarijn, the idea was to shoot in a different location which I scouted the day before… believe it or not the day of the shoot they were repainting the location and removing everything I liked about it… hummmmm

 

But of course we don’t panic and we found a different location, the local skatepark.
I always love shooting in these kind of locations due to the many options you have with shade/sun and of course the “grungy” looks. The images you see today are a mix of natural light and strobes. Different tintings and effects are used mostly with Topaz ReStyle and Topaz Clarity.

Roosmarijn Augustus 13 2013-10-Edit

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It’s just a shirt right?

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Sometimes you really wonder what to shoot.
Especially with glamour I always feel this problem, don’t get me wrong I love shooting glamour images, although my main focus is with fashion, but when a model is standing in front of the camera it’s always a challenge for me to find something that is unique and will get the model into a mood that she really enjoys the session. Over the years I’ve tried several things and although some have been really successful I think the one that is the most fun is the …. shirt.

 

Now a shirt is a wide concept of course, you can think about anything that stretches.
During the session just let your model play with the material and shoot, this way you don’t have to “push” your model into poses and really get a cool playful look in your session, the fun part is, it’s always different.

 

Some samples I shot over the last few months with stretching material during the workshops/sessions.
Some images can be considered NSFW but I personally think they will be ok.

Lenaa Augustus 3 2013 Glamour workshop -128-Edit

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