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.

Workshop at Dutch Elinchrom agent Fotoflits

The days I’m sick in a year are not that much, as most people I’m sometimes struck with some soar throat problems, some headaches or just simply put some off days, however once or maybe twice a year I’m really sick, often the flu. Luckily for me it always goes rather quick but sometimes there are some hard decisions to be made, last week it was a week like that, teaching the DIPP workshop went ok, but the days after the DIPP workshop I got really sick from the flu. I hoped to be better for the workshops that weekend, starting on Friday in Wormerveer with the Dutch Elinchrom agent (and good friends) Fotoflits, and the workshop that Saturday. But in the end I had to make a choice I could only do one workshop (on Doctors advise) and in this case I choose the Fotoflits workshop, this was planned way in advance and was not something that could be repeated very easily. So I filled up on flu medication and went to Fotoflits.

Read more

NIK competition

As many of you know NIK software is without a doubt one of the best plugins out there, many pros rely on it for their daily work, and I’m one of them. From the NIK plugins I mostly love Color Efex Pro and NIK recently released a new version of this amazing collection of plugins. In the months December and January I will be doing 3 webinars for NIK and we thought it would be a cool idea to start a competition with a digital version of NIK color Efex Pro 4, the brand new version of Color Efex Pro.

So what do you have to do?
We will start the competition today and you are allowed to send in a maximum of 3 images in the category “PEOPLE”, this can be anything from fashion, glamour (no 18+ please), portraits, street etc. the images can be digitally enhanced, straight out of the cam, black and white, color etc. but they have to be different to win, every week we will feature 2 of the best images from that week that will be shown on the blog.

 

 

You can send in images once, every week, spread them out over the period it doesn’t matter. However I do advise you to not wait till the last week, by highlighting 2 images every week you can see the quality and judge for yourself were you would rank. You can send in the images to info@frankdoorhof.com. Once every while I will also select one person that is invited to write a guestblog on my blog about his/her work. Via https://frankdoorhof.com/+ you can see an album specially for the NIK competition. Direct link to the album here.

 

The winner will be announced during the third webinar I will do for NIK in January, and will get a free electronic version of Color Efex Pro 4
GOOD LUCK !

 

Please mail the images to me in 800 pixels longest side.
info@frankdoorhof.com 

 

All people that …… are ……. WORD!!!

Must be the weirdest title I ever used for an article.
You can fill in the blanks yourself, but let me start by doing one that I wrote this article about.

 

All people that don’t meter are stupid……
And before you explode and start mailing me, please read on.
Every week I get a few mails from people that have seen me using a meter and they are always in 2 camps. 1 group will try to convince me that they love the work I do but advise me to stop using a meter, the other group wonder why there are so many people out there on the web, on youtube, on training sites etc. who still struggle without a meter.


It’s no secret that I love to use my meter, in every workshop there is some attention to the meter and how to proper use the tool. And there we go already please do remember that the meter is just a tool. In the end it all boils down that we tell a story with our images, move people with our images or/and make something interesting for other people to enjoy, endure or love. That’s photography. Using a meter is just a tool to get to that end result.

 

First things first
Don’t read this as if I say that you shouldn’t use a meter, no way.
I strongly (and really read STRONGLY) believe that if you’re into photography, and you don’t even have to be a pro, you will have to use a meter to get accurate and constant results. I really don’t care if people say that they get great results without meter, my answer to them is “you will get there quicker and probably even get better results when you DO use a meter”. But in the end, and please do remember this…. you can make shitty images with a meter and great work without. But let’s look at some things I want to clarify.

Read more

Guestblog Niel van Niekerk

I met Neil during my workshops in NY last year and we immediately had a “click”, Neil is not only a great photographer but also a real nice person and I loved hanging out with Neil and doing a cool shoot at the beach with a small team of friends (always the best way to shoot). A while ago I did a guestblog for Neils blog and today he returns the favor for you readers. So without leaving you waiting for the man…. here is the guestblog by Neil.

 

Off-camera bounce flash
by Neil van Niekerk
Earlier on in 2011, I was fortunate in working with an exceptional model, Ulorin Vex. She is well known for her styling and fetish costumes and also for her striking looks. She also happened to be supremely easy to work with, with her lovely and quiet demeanor – always professional. What I want to share in this article, is the thought-process that I took during this photo session. While I might have an idea, it usually takes a few detours getting there as I adapt to any specific situation. For this photo session, I was shooting in the hotel we were staying in in California. As a boutique hotel, there were a number of interesting potential places to photograph in. The room that I was staying in, had these broad yellow and green stripes … and when Ulorin Vex put her red latex outfit on, I thought this would be perfect as a backdrop – striking, bold colors.
This final image was quite simple in its execution and how it was lit up. It was lit with a single speedlight bounced towards the corner of the room away from Ulorin Vex.