My blog, although I don’t see myself as a blogger but as a Photographer I will try to blog some interesting material during the weeks.
Expect at least 2 updates a week.
In todays blogpost some more images we shot during the Photodays in Brussels with our model Ellen.
Dresses by Nadine
These images were all shot during the 20-30 minute demos on the trade show floor in a small space, so be gentle 😀
Tradeshows are always special places.
It’s awesome to meet up with people, hold new gear and of course visit demos and presentations. It goes without saying that both me and Annewiek absolutely love trade shows. For the Photodays in Belgium we were asked to teach small workshops on the Fidak booth.
Fidak is a dutch company specialised in printing, from large to small, from standard paper to even chrome. It’s pretty awesome to be working as a photographer on the booth with so many printers, so I think it’s no surprise that we now have a nice collection of prints at home 🙂
During the Photodays we were joined by Ellen as our model, and of course we got some nice dresses from Nadine (always cool).
One of the main challenges is of course to shoot “ok” images in a very small space during 20 minutes demos, teach some cool tricks to the attendees and deal with the whole trade show experience. But hey I wrote a book about shooting in small or difficult locations so one might expect that it’s easy for me… right?
Well not really to be honest.
A trade show area is worse than most “bad locations”, but for me it becomes a real challenge to still create something cool, and this time my eyes were drawn to the aluminium strips in the booth. The booth was build with black panels held together with aluminium strips and somewhere on 3/4 the different brands were placed on each panel. A bit like every normal trade show booth.
I started out with some images against a Lastolite backdrop, like you see on top of this blogpost. And although I could have filled all demos with this I always like to challenge myself and give the attendees something to go back for to see how I develop the idea, because this is actually what happens during trade shows. I set myself a challenge and during the days I try to build that idea to something that is actually cool to show.
Ok long story short.
I saw the strips and the black backdrops with white letters, Fidak asked me if I could take some simple shots with the model in front of the panels and the logos, now in all honesty I hated the strips, but during workshops (and in the book) I always tell people that if there is something in a set that really annoys the heck out of you but you can’t take it out….. make it part of the story, make it bigger and use it. And…. well that’s exactly what I did. I started adding the blue gel feathered across the wall and place the model in a corner, later I tried it with a red gel, and eventually we even shot some images against wall (although the corner was my favourite).
The nice thing about this setup is that it almost looks like a neon setup, so let’s take a look at some of those shots, there are a lot that I included to show you how many different ways I tried, normally I will cut it down for publication, but this time I thought it would be fun to show a bit more to see the idea grow.
KEEP READING AFTER THE IMAGES
And of course we also did some other ideas with this setup.
This one I really liked, so let’s close the blog with that one for today, and tomorrow share some more images.
I absolutely love teaching the workshop Cosplay.
Don’t get me wrong, I love all workshops, but Cosplay is one of the most creative ones where I can literally almost do everything we think off plus work with some amazing costumes.
Today in the blog the results from the workshop Cosplay with Jamila
With set number 2 we actually used exactly the same base setup, just changed the role of the blue strobe.
In the first image the blue strobe is aimed at the wall and we actually needed an extra strobe aimed at the ceiling to fill in shadows. In the second shot I aimed the blue strobe towards the camera and removed the fill in flash. As you can see a totally different look and in my opinion a lot more moody.
After this amazing dress it was time for some more SF looks.
I’ve let these in the order I build it up.
As you can see I not only changed the angles but also the expression of the model and usage of the lens compression/distortion.
It’s all in essence the same setup.
And of course we also did some other cool looks.
and as always our workshops are very intense with information, but…. also always a lot of fun 😀
This blogpost is something I’ve never talked about before, mainly because I was a bit suspicious about it, but also because I like to keep the blog photography related. However during the lockdowns I’ve been overthinking a lot of things and this was one of them, so I decided it was time to write this blogpost and share my 100% personal experience and how I think this can help absolutely everyone by earning/saving some money but also get a lot of extra benefits..
Travel and shopping
When the world returns back to semi normal we will of course start to travel again and visit more stores. Now as you know over time our cash money will disappear and we will start to work more and more with debit/credit cards and our smartphones and watches. This all sounds great, but for me it never really worked on my Garmin watch, and also online you have to create several payment methods, add to this loyalty cards which needs another app again and you can probably see that like the older MacBooks needed dongles we need some apps and different cards to make it work. But what if you don’t want this?
Enter the topic of todays blogpost.
The Curve
Now believe me, up until a few months ago I never heard about curve but while using it I became so enthusiastic about it I decided to for once write a piece that had no direct connection to photography.
As mentioned before we use different apps, cards etc.
This also means that keeping track of everything can be a mix and match and sometimes we pay something with the business card that was supposed to be private etc. Now wouldn’t it be nice to have solution that would make all of this easier?
Well that’s Curve
You can get Curve for free online and right from the start you can install the app and use the virtual card for online shopping and using it for your phone and watch, the real card will arrive a few days later and can be used in shops etc.
So what’s all the fuzz about.
Well, Curve itself is not really a card, yes you have a balance on the card, but the main thing about Curve is that you can connect most of your other Visa and Mastercard cards and give them the right names and select which card to use. Indeed you read that right, if you have 3 cards you just connect them all to Curve in the app and you pay in the shop/online with the Curve card and it will deduct if from the card you selected for the payment. And the cool thing… if by accident you paid with the business card, you can easily just change the card later in the app. And if you hit a limit on a card… no problem there is the anti embarrassing mode which will automatically switch to a card that does work.
During the month you get a really overview of your spendings per card and you can label each purchase with labels which makes it super easy to track your spending and see where most money is going (sorry guys)
But there is more.
You can also add your loyalty cards and use the app to show them in the store, you can use ATM machines and also abroad there are some nice benefits making life easier. And this is all for the FREE card.
We personally only use the free version, but when you select one of the paid options you can get a 1% cashback from 3-6 stores, insurance for your phone and valuables, travel insurance and access to airport lounges. As mentioned we use the free version at the moment but the moment we start travelling again we will immediately start using the subscription option.
Conclusion
The Curve card is a must have for everyone that runs a business and has to juggle with different accounts and doesn’t want the hassle of figuring out what was what and when. Add to this a 1% cashback, insurance and airport lounges for the paid version and Curve is something I think really everyone should get, at least the free version.
The free version made it for me finally possible to use my Garmin watch now with Garmin pay, and there is more…. but let me first conclude this review.
You can get the Curve card via this link.
https://www.curve.com/join#DGR3YY9E
If you follow the link you will get 10 euros and 1 month 1% cashback on every purchase, after a month the card keeps all it’s perks of course except the 1% cashback.
As mentioned there is more.
Since the pandemic I also started to work with crypto, and please don’t stop reading, don’t worry I’m not going to push the next memecoin, I’m 100% not into that and for sure don’t want it on my blog, however the real reason for Curve was exactly this.
Earning passive income
You’ve heard the term, and to be honest I’m getting sick and tired of it, unrealistic promises, blah blah, overnight millionaire etc. yes sure. I’m more of a realistic kind of guy, but the whole crypto thing did intrigue me. But I decided to do it slightly differently. Instead of going into the crazy world of trading I decided to start working with a so called crypto card. Let me explain.
We all use cards to pay stuff in stores and online right?
And I think we all see that life is getting more and more expensive right?
So wouldn’t it be nice if you get some discounts on 99% if your expenses?
Well this is how our journey started that ended up with Curve.
I will make this one really short, and for more information I will give a website link.
After a tip from a website we ended up with a Crypto debit card from Crypto.com, al very large player in this market which I’m pretty sure will not be gone in the foreseeable future. Now putting a lot of your own money in Crypto is not something I would advise, but I can’t deny that there is a lot of profit to be made, but also to be lost. So I would love to do it but not with money that I worked for… sounds bizar right, but read on.
With the Crypto.com card you get a debit card which you can top up with your credit card or via the bank for free. This is a VISA card so everywhere where they accept visa you can pay (also online of course). So far so good if you don’t do anything else with it.. well that’s it, you just top up and spend and top up and spend. No crypto is mentioned or used. But behind the scenes something cool happens.
When you start using the card you did create an account at crypto.com which is a so called exchange. So you could by and sell crypto there, they actually have some really cool things like supercharger and earn programs but as mentioned I won’t go into the details, just how we use it for our business/life.
Now if you opted for the free card, 99% of the purchases you make you immediately get a 1% cashback in CRO (the native token from crypto.com) you don’t have to do anything for that, and my advise is in fact… don’t touch it, we’ve been using the card since a few months and the CRO token has risen over 80% in that time, this is 100% passive income, you don’t spend money on the card itself or subscriptions, you just top up and live your life like you normally do, now look back in a year and you have a great piggybank filled with CRO tokens.
Now if that sounds great I would HIGHLY recommend looking at the Ruby Red or Green versions. They give you 2-3% cashbacks on every purchase PLUS free Spotify and Netflix, which you pay like you normally do but get back in Cashbacks in CRO tokes, which again add to your piggy bank.
Again this sounds like the many “get rich soon” commercials but I really want to stress this is not meant that way, in fact I’ve been talking with friends and attendees of the workshops about this for quite some time and most are just over the moon with the ease of Curve and the cashbacks. It’s no where near a get rich soon thing, you “only” get a few % cashback, but it’s actually shocking how fast it all adds up, we bought an Apple MacBook Pro and that was a discount of 90 euros, something Apple doesn’t give you and as mentioned the CRO token has rissen quite a bit so that 90 euros is now 125…. you won’t hear me complain if it goes down by the way, for us it’s a piggy bank, we don’t touch it for at least 4-5 years and I think by than it will be a nice vintage guitar 😀
Now you probably also get the idea of Curve.
We are using the Crypto.com card (we upgraded to the green one in fact) for literally everything so it was pretty frustrating that the card didn’t work in most stores we visit, now with the Curve (which the Crypto.com card is connected to) we can pay in almost every store.
Use my referral link https://crypto.com/app/b54fav37nk to sign up for Crypto.com and we both get $25 USD 🙂
Overall conclusion
The world is changing and will probably never go back to what it was, how much we want it to. A fact of life is that we all have to pay for the costs of the pandemic, and this means inflation, by using free cards and getting 1% cashbacks on ALL your spending is a way to earn some of that inflation back. If you can spare to stake 350 or 3500 euros for 6 months I would HIGHLY recommend taking a look at the RED and GREEN cards from Crypto.com
Although this has nothing to do with photography, it has everything to do with making sure we at least get some passive income by just living our lives and getting a whole lot of benefits in ease of use from the Curve.
I hope you guys appreciated this little sidestep.
I’m always willing to talk about Crypto or these solutions online or via Email but for the blog this was a one time deal, it was just too good not to share.
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