Attention points

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When shooting both female or male models it’s always nice to get a real “eye catcher” in the shot. For me it’s often the color red that really draws my eye so I always try to add something red into the clothing or background.

 

Do make sure however that you are careful with your backgrounds, we are “hardwired” to read from left to right and from top to bottom in the Western world, so if you have a strong red logo in the bottom left corner for example your eyes will go to that logo and start looking at the picture again, if you however have that logo on the bottom right or even worse top right part your eyes will leave the image way too fast.

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So as always, it’s not a matter of just adding something, it’s also a matter of being careful and play with a little bit of psychology 😀

 

For much more in depth tips and techniques check out my book “Mastering the model shoot”

Amsterdam at night

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Today some images we shot during an evening walk in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam (24 of 117) March 29 2015_DxO

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Cuypers Library Amsterdam

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When I’m abroad I will always try to shoot in some special locations, often these are arranged by local photographers or friends, and it always gives me some really cool shots you normally can’t.
When Scott (Kelby) was asked what he would love to do he asked me to arrange a nice library and send me some images of the Cuypers Library in the “rijksmuseum” in Amsterdam…. well that’s not a location where you just walk in and start setting up you tripod and shoot.

 

Originally we arrange acces before opening times, but believe it or not we got stuck in traffic in a MAJOR way (and we even had an hour to spare) and while in the car we talked about our power grid and having all the lines under ground so we hardly have any problems etc. etc…… the regular “this is how our country work” kind of chit chat.

 

Due to the traffic jam I had to find a restroom and we pulled up to a shopping centre and a Burger King, well at 10:00 you expect them to be open right?
Much to our surprise (and my horror) it was closed, so we walked to the next store… closed
In the next store people were looking at us from behind the electric doors and refused to open them up, in my best “mime” I tried to explain I really had to visit their store, one of the employees pulled out an ipad and typed “We are stuck in here due to power outage”…. hummmm that is new.

 

Finally we found a public restroom without lights (thank you iPhone and steady hands).
We arrived in the Rijksmuseum about 2 hours late, but after some negotiations we were still allowed to shoot. Today some of my images from Cuypers library. Do realize I never shoot interiors and this was actually one of the first times I shot it like this (from my new Benro tripod). So enjoy the images but don’t judge them 😀

 

Many thanks for the Rijksmuseum for letting us shoot here and making the exception.

 

Cuypers library 3 - March 27 2015_HDR

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Periscope, the new social media thing or much more….

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We all know the problem… there are WAY too many social media platforms at the moment, if you want to be active on all you can’t work anymore or you have to have an ingenious system of crossposting stuff working for you. It seems that every day there is a new “someone” trying to become a millionaire by launching something new that we all HAVE to do, because if we don’t…. well you don’t want to be left behind right?

 

When Meerkat was released I have to be honest that I did not even look into it, in all honestly I just can’t be excited to see someone (not even my friends) walking their dog, eating a banana or (please don’t) sitting in the restroom reading the newspaper, and let’s be honest most people are using it just for that, and with hashtags that contain the words Fridge and see I’m already over it, or at least I thought.

 

During Professional Imaging Scott (Kelby) and Terry (White) told me to check out a new app called “Periscope” by Twitter, and I did.
What I will write down now is my PERSONAL experience, my PERSONAL opinion and the way that I’m gonna use it, so if you don’t agree there is no problem at all, it’s just my PERSONAL opinion. That being said let’s look at Periscope.

 

The app
Periscope is created by Twitter and can be found on the iOs App store, I believe other versions will be released soon (they are working on Android).
The app itself looks very simple (and that’s the way it should be) and works very fast, when you start working with it you are actually up and running in seconds, and that’s what I love about these kind of apps, they should be easy to operate and to understand.

IMG_2524-1

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