Try something simple for once….. or twice

A lot of people always complicate light setups, if we bought we 4 lights we better use 4 otherwise the “wife” will be angry “why did you buy 4 if you only use 1” right?
However sometimes simple can be so much more spectacular.
Today two images with an incredibly simple light setup.

 

I used one Elinchrom head with the standard reflector and a grid.
Now most books, videos, workshops (including my own) start with the tip to get the light OFF CAMERA, well yeah that’s true… however that doesn’t mean that sometimes it’s very cool to shoot in the same direction as the light. In this case the light is of course OFF CAMERA, for the very simple reason that you “can’t” mount a studio strobe on your hotshoe (although I’m sure somewhere on ebay you will find an adaptor), but for this setup it’s actually just a little bit above my camera, so I’m shooting almost with on camera flash (only it’s placed about 40-50cm above the camera).

 

As you can see there is nothing wrong with the effect, it’s actually pretty cool.
The background is also very simple, it’s just wallpaper, we have several movable walls in our studio that are covered with wallpaper, we need app 2 rolls per wall so it’s very cheap and easy to change wallpapers if I’m bored with them.

nadine dec 27 201317646-Edit

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RIP Malcolm

This morning we heard the sad news about the passing of Malcolm Whittle.
Now for people not know Malcolm, he was the head of Elinchrom.

 

We met Malcolm a few years ago during Photokina and I immediately loved his attitude, let’s put it this way he suffered from the same “problem” that I have… I believe in our hearts we never grew up, he loved life and every time we met him he was full of life. Not often do you meet someone that has such a drive and power at his age and still looked and acted young.

 

I (and Annewiek) consider the whole Whittle family as close friends and from our side we would wish them all the strength they need in the coming weeks/months/years. Malcolm will be dearly missed. Malcolm and his family took us under their wings at Elinchrom and made sure that we were always treated like family. I was more than honored to demo at the Elinchrom head offices last year (just a few months ago) and meet up with Malcolm for the last time and had some fun.

 

I’m sure the next thunderstorm will be a little bit better in light quality, because I’m sure Malcolm will be adjusting the light from up there to his liking 🙂
RIP Malcolm.

Three portraits

During a session (for me) it’s very important to capture something that is “unique” although I know that everything has already been done at least once or twice (probably more) I still try to steer away from the “standard” beauty shot, and don’t get me wrong… there is nothing wrong with a beauty shot but for me… well it’s a bit “boring” to do myself.

 

So how do you approach something like this.
I always try to get something from my model, it can be a very subtle expression or something more.
In the following shot I went for the more relaxed expression.
Just let the model look away and let her think of someone that is coming over the hill, the fun part is that every model will give you a different expression.

Susanna December 20 2013-4-Edit

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Guestblog DPC

Hi everyone, this is my second guest blog here at Frank’s website and this time I would like to introduce you to one of my favorite websites “DPChallenge”, which is short for “Digital Photography Challenge”.

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DPC has been around since 2002 and I have been a member since 2006. After more than 7 years of fun and building my photography skills through entering challenges and chatting with other members, I think you should know about this place as well… Becoming a registered user is free, and yearly membership costs only $25… with that, you can enter more challenges each week, join member-only discussions, get more space and have your own portfolio page.

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