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.

Get your kicks on Route 66

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Ever since I was a young boy I dreamt of going to America.
Somehow the country had an enormous draw on me, I loved the 50-60’s, R&R, the muscle cars (even owned a 1970 Pontiac Firebird Formule 400 for a few years) and of course the legendary Route66. Every chance I get I will try to see documentaries about this amazing travel from one side of the states to the other, the mother road.

The first time we visited Los Angeles we tried to find some of this road, but we were not that lucky, due to time stress and simply put lack of information we had to do with just a few landmarks but nothing spectacular, and the second time we visited LA it was also not doable due to again time stress, but I still wanted to do some of the route… so when we booked our flight to PhotoshopWorld Las Vegas this time we decided to fly into LAX and drive to Vegas. And I mean not the 3-4 hour drive… no we planned on doing the 7-9 hour drive (including stops etc.) In this blogpost some images from that drive and some behind the scenes stories.

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Maria Bertrand

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As you probably already know we’re back from PhotoShopWorld (later more on this).
PSW switches between Orlando and Las Vegas (and sometimes other places), and this time it was Las Vegas.
Because we travelled with my mom we decided to not fly in to Vegas directly but to fly to LA and stay a few days there, and drive to Vegas after that, a short vacation so to speak. However vacation or not…. when you’re in LA (lala land) you must of course also shoot an actor or actress 😀

Via a good friend of mine (and great fitness shooter) Ian L. Sitren www.secondfocus.com I got in contact with Maria Bertrand, a professional actress and fitness model in LA. Now some people are just cool, and some people are incredibly nice and cool, Maria is one of the last category. Originally she would only be joining us for diner, but let’s be honest when you have the change to shoot such a beautiful lady you can’t resist, so we decided to do a quick impromptu shoot.

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Styling by Nadine

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Sometimes as a photographer (or any other creative profession) you find people that are just plain awesome, they help you develop as a creative person and push you forward to get better results. A few years ago a model named Nadine started modeling for me and at one point we really felt that connection you sometimes have. A few years later she made me a promise “Frank, every shoot from now on I will improve and surprise you”, well she already did before that so I wondered how long she would keep this up..
And if you have been reading this blog for some time you already know the answer…. she is still keeping it up, in fact Nadine is growing into a (in my opinion) great stylist. So it’s no real surprise that today she is joining the blog as a guest blogger about…. styling.
Why styling?
Styling can make or break a shoot. A model can be absolutely stunning, which makes every shot successful, even if it’s styled pretty basic. But if the model has guts and the styling is top-knotch then everyone can be a model. Even if you’re one of those absolutely stunning models, after 5000 photo’s it does get boring.
Of course you will always have enough photographers that will demand a perfectly beautiful model, especially for glamour and lingerie work. In that case you usually won’t need and extreme styling effort. But if we’re talking about modelphotography in general then you (as a photographer) would usually want to see a form of creativity, something that sticks, something with a story.

Why you should trust the meter

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After my workshops a lot of students switch to the use of a light meter.
They see how quick it is to setup the lights, meter the background, make sure there is detail in whites or blacks and much much more but that’s “only” part of the story. Let me tell you two stories that are real life stories and will show you a different side of why to use a meter….

 

The workshop story
A while ago I taught a workshop for a group of professional photographers (always a tough crowd), most of them (to my surprise) did not use a meter. After my story about why to use a meter and telling them that it was really a great tool to make sure you get what you want it was time for my photoshoot. Now believe it or not but the first shot I took was terrible, whites were all blown, blacks were blocked up and it was just plain terrible….. Some of the people in the crowd were a bit like “yeah, sure that’s why we don’t use a meter”, and some asked “ok, so now you’re gonna tweak the lights, right ?”

 

I surprised I think the whole crowd when I did not change anything on the lights but asked for the remote of the projector. In a few seconds I changed the brightness and contrast settings and the image looked the way I intended, now I hear you think “yeah sure, that’s not the way to do it”, well actually they also asked me about that (of course), so to prove my point I reset the projector and showed a grayscale 10 step bar. On the non adjusted settings there were only a few bars visible. And after setting the brightness and contrast all bars were shown, and also the image was showing up correctly.

 

The Glyn Dewis lens story
During the first “Frank Doorhof and Friends” workshop there was a small problem with one of the light setups.
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