Cyber ……. weekend ……

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It’s cyber weekend readers…..
And that means some really good deals.
These are the ones I really liked.

KT cyberdeal

Kelby Training has a killer deal going on Nov 29 – Dec 2. It’s photography training from the world’s best photographers (you can also find me there ;)) for the lowest price of the year! This is the perfect gift for the creative person in your life. Here’s the link: www.kelbytraining.com/cyberweekend

 

Topaz
Topaz will be running a great discount action from November 28 to December 2nd (cyber) you can get the WHOLE suite with a 50% discount now it’s becoming a no brainer. Personally I love to use Clarity for that pop effect (hyper sharp) and Clean3 for the Skin retouching for some more difficult skins but there is of course way more, and again for this discount it’s really cool to step in.
The code for Topaz is : blackfriday2013
And order it please via this link : http://www.topazlabs.com/716.html

 

 

Alien Skin
Now the other one that is really interesting is Alien Skin.
I use Exposure 5 a lot for the tinting of my images and especially in the batch mode Exposure 5 really shines.
You can get a 10% discount on their software if you use the code FDH1321 and if you order in December use the code FDH1312

 

Our videos
And we also have a cool discount for you guys of course.
If you order any downloadable video from our website (you find them here) and you use the code ROGUE78 you will get a cool 25% discount.

 

Enjoy the discounts, and feel free to share them.

 

Using the sun in the shot

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Yesterday we looked at using the sun as the main lightsource, but today we take it one step further.
When using strobes (and even without) you can really play with including the sun into the shot, in the next series I used the Elinchrom Ranger RX to fill in the model while using the sun (in the frame) as a strong backlight and creating some interesting lens flares.

 

In these shots I also lowered the brightness of the sky to make it more dramatic, you can do this with a lot of power like the Elinchrom Ranger RX, but also with speed lights and the use of HSS (HighSpeedSync). As long as you lower the brightness of the sky in comparison to the strobe output.

 

Now we could of course just shoot Marie posing and rely on a great model, cool clothing and great light… but that’s not what the viewer will remember in the end. One of the most important things in a shot for me is the inclusion of a story, this can be done with adding props, sets etc. but also very simple by just giving some extra attention to the pose like you can see here.

Marie November 21 2013-74-EditIt can be just as simple as this, but as you can see when you see the rest of the shots, this image really tells a story while the other ones are just…. well nice. So the next time you’re on location try to not be afraid of the sun and give some extra attention to the posing of the model and lift your shot from ok to WOW.

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Using the sun as a hard light source

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We all know the sun, it’s that big bright thing in the sky.
It’s almost always there but still a lot of people are afraid of it to use it into their photography.
We all know the expression that you should shoot during certain time periods because otherwise the sun is not “nice” for the final shot. Well I agree with this in certain situations however with model photography I have to say that I love to shoot with real harsh light.

 

Today I share some images from Marie that were shot with just the sun as the light source, as you can see the shadows are really adding to the shot.
The difference between the two sets is that in one set I metered for the face and in the other set I metered towards in between the model and the sun, this creates two different looks from the same situation as you can see. You can of course also later do this in Lightroom or Photoshop but I strongly believe that you can better create it right on the set.

 

Anyway for today a tip that you should not be afraid for shooting in the bright harsh sunlight.
But make sure that you watch the shadow “play” it should really add something to the shot.

 

Marie November 21 2013-10-Edit

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Microsoft Surface Pro 2

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We all love our gadgets, and when the gadgets can really add something to our photographic workflow it gets even more interesting of course.
As you have read on this blog before I recently sold my MacBookPro in exchange for a Sony Vaio Duo 13 which I still use and love, but in all honestly it’s in a price range where not everyone is able to shop in for a tablet/laptop, so I was very interested to testdrive the new Microsoft tablet, Surface Pro 2.

surface-pro-2-in-purple-640x353

 

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