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.

New shots Nadine 27th August 2010

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Today it was time for the basic workshop Studio Technique I.

This was a privat workshop for Dutch heaven visitors and the model for today was Nadine, without a doubt one of the more creative models I know, she always has something that will stun the students…. and me.

In the studio technique I workshop there is a huge part with theoretical background and after that there is a part were we bring all the theory into practice. In this blog post you can see some of the images I selected from my own set.

Material used :
Elinchrom Deep Octa with Lighttools grid
Chimera strip light also with the Lighttools grid

And yes the stairs you have seen before :D, it’s the new stairs in our studio connecting the studio floor with the second floor where which we are now using as a relax space with a wonderful overview on the studio floor from above.

To start off with the first shot you see here, this was shot with the Elinchrom deep octa with the lighttools grid, on the background a standard reflector with grid and as accent the chimera striplight with added lighttools grid.

And here are the shots :

Chimera strip light with lighttools grid

Elinchrom Deep Octa with lighttools grid and Chimera striplight with grid as fill for the bottom.

Tomorrow one of my all time favorite models is doing the workshops again, so watch out for tomorrows blog post with Marie. Also make sure to check out twitter during the workshops days because most of the time I twitter some images and sometimes a small video.

New shots Nadine

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Yesterday it was time again for the Advanced workshop.
In this workshop there is always a lot of attention to finding the correct angles and working with more advanced story telling, movement and posing. As with all the workshops there is a clear difference in approach between the different workshops. In this case most of the shots you see are done with one lightsource but as a theme for advanced it meant to really look at what you’re doing and being able to let the light do what you want it to do.

For the first series we used the Elinchrom Deep Octa with a grid attached.

And as usual there is also some attention for the different lens choices, and the difficulties that this brings in posing and distortion. After this the difficulty is moved up a bit by using a striplight with grid to make the light a bit more difficult to steer exactly where you want it, attention had to be given to the staircase but without the staircase and the wall taking away from the model. In the workshops all the light setups are explained with light metering to predict exactly what the light does, this will help the students in situations were there is no dark studio were you can see the modeling lights, but were you have to work with natural light that is added to the strobes and washes away the modeling lights, or when using speed-lights where there are no modeling lights. I’m a strong promoter of using a light-meter and by showing this kind of setups and explaining how easy you can measure it and this way letting the light do exactly what YOU want has often pushed the students to using the light-meter (again).

So here a sample of the strip-light shots.

After this setup it was time to play a bit with motion and freezing jumps, falls, dance etc.
For me personally always one of the most fun things to do, every jump shot is different and can never be repeated exactly the same way, for the blog I choose not a jump shot but these two just for fun “freaking Nadine” shots.


Finally it was time for the story telling part, as usual with Nadine she always prepares something special for the end of the shoot and this time it was not different. The most difficult light-setup is used for this setup with an Elinchrom Maxilight with custom grid aimed through the stairs. The difficult part for the students is to find the angles and also the light. First I started with a normal lens and switched to the wide to show the impact for the story telling factor that a different lens choice CAN introduce.

This ended the workshop for this Friday.
I’ve been teaching the workshops for several years now and the most asked question is “Do you still like it ?” well I have to say that I understand the question, I teach app 2 workshops a week in our studio in the Netherlands so one could think that it becomes routine, however there are some things that I do to make sure I enjoy the workshops still the same way the first time I started with them.

By changing the studio often and introducing different themes in the Advanced en Glamour workshops I keep not only the workshops interesting for the students but also for myself. During our stay in Florida for example we got a whole new floor above the makeup and relax room, to get there we need a staircase and as you can see in these images that staircase is of course used immediately in the workshops. For the students this is interesting because they learn how to use something you can find almost everywhere and not only in a studio, for me it’s interesting because I can work out many new ideas (this is just the beginning). In a few weeks we will invite some painters that will paint the new walls into a themed setting like they did with many other walls in the studio.

Working this way and also by refreshing the workshops theory part often the workshops are still very much fun to teach but also for students to come back to time and time again…… it’s always new and fresh.

Add to this the workshops I teach on the most beautiful locations in the states and Europe and I can honestly say…. Yes I still love it every day 😀

Feel free to comment by pressing the comment button and join the discussion, leave a comment or ask questions about this post.

I’m not a wedding photographer, although……

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When one of your favorite models who has been one of my muze s for many years asks you what can you say ?

Marie joined our models some years ago and has been in some of my favorite concepts and locations. Her casting was one of a big reset, she mailed me many times to join the model group I was working with at that time and to be honest the images she mailed me did not convince me…… however finally I decided to give her a chance (hopefully after that she would stop mailing :D), she came in and was more interesting than on the webcam shots she mailed me, but I was not convinced yet. Her posing was not that good and she was obvious nervous. After 10 minutes she said “Wait a minute Frank” went to the makeup room and stayed there for a few minutes, she came back a model…. her posing was awesome and she really was someone completely different after the big reset.
After this test shoot Marie joined me on countless photoshoots, workshops, advertising campaigns etc. etc. there was no idea to crazy of Marie would be up for it and she always nailed it, I have only a few models that I trust with almost every assignment and she is one of them.One day during a workshop she was not feeling well but she really shined, the best images I ever got from here, until I turned around and heard a big bang. Marie collapsed and was totally out. Now one advantage when you call 112 (911) and say that a model has fainted in a photo studio is that within 3 minutes there was an ambulance and they took good care of Marie. The good news arrived a few weeks later…. Marie was pregnant.
We never lost contact but it was quiet for some time, getting a child is a huge change of course. But a few weeks ago Marie got the urge again to pose and who did she ask…… 😀 yep she still got it. During that session she told me she was getting married and wanted to invite me…. yeah sure….. and yes very soon the question followed that she would love me to take the shots after the ceremonie, and what can you say to one of your favorite models ? “yes I will”.

The shots during the normal day were in the capable hands of another of my favorite models…. Corine 😀 yep she also picked up the camera and is doing some fine work, so it was fun in the church with both of us shooting the ceremonie because let’s be honest as a photographer you can sit front stage and when you already have your camera with you, what else to do to kill time.

I won’t bore you with the normal ceremony shots but I do want to share these shots with you, it was raining and they had to go the diner of course so I had to work really fast (although they had given me all the time, I just don’t feel it’s proper to take more time than needed). With this kind of sessions I always aim for 2 great shots that they will love and can hang on the wall, however I understand it are no model shots so I try to coach as little as possible and just let them be themselves and a good couple they are to shoot.

Technical information:
Camera : Canon 5DMKII
Lens : Canon 24-105 f4 IS L
Strobe : Elinchrom Quadra with 1 head and a shoot thru umbrella
Session time : app 10 minutes

From this side I would like to congratulate Marie and Symen (and Tijs) wish her all the best in her future, and of course hope to see her many times in front of my camera again.
And hoping for a lot of crazy themes, outfits and locations.
Marie you still rock 😀

Getting ready for Dublin….

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I’m always excited for the workshops abroad, and this year has been crazy with workshops in Conventry (UK), Bristol (UK), New York (USA) and on schedule are Kent (UK), Dublin (Ireland), Italy, Belgium and of course the photokina on which I will be demoing at the Elinchrom/Leaf booth this year.

But first there will be Dublin.
On September 7th I will teach a free seminar during the photovision roadshow, followed by a small group workshop the day after. Most of the time the smaller workshops are with groups ranging from 5-8 people, with these I like to keep the groups small to make a nice and personal experience for the students. Now what do we have to do for the workshops ? maybe it’s fun to take a small look backstage what goes into organizing the location workshops.

Preparing the trip
In the case of the UK we often drive with our own car but with Dublin it’s a bit far so we will fly in and rent a car. For the UK and Ireland we often arrive one day before the seminars and leave one day after the workshop, with Dublin we will probably add one day for some sightseeing. Because we want some nice locations for the workshop (always preferabel to a studio location for me personally) it’s important to plan something that has both inside and outside options, especially in the UK it’s always a guess what the weather will be, for example in Bristol we had half of the day very nice weather, even hot and the second part there was so much rain that you couldn’t walk outside without getting soaked in a few seconds. Most of the times we will book a hotel that has a nice ambiance and in places like the UK and Ireland and Scotland that’s often not a problem. However getting permission to shoot in a hotel is sometimes a bit more difficult, that’s why we often choose hotels that are run by families or ar part of a very small chain, those will often give you permission rather easily.

Preparing the material
Well one could think that I have lots of material lying around for the workshops because we teach them so often, but nothing is less true. For every location I try to make a different program, first off to make it interesting for myself, but most of all to teach a workshop that is fitting for the group and location and not something that is standard. For the free seminars I will often use the same material for one tour (the photovision roadshow) for one year, meaning everyone can see the seminar independent of their location, and because we plan the dates we participate in far from each other there is hardly no overlap, although some people follow us around 😀 (thank you) but I always try to teach the seminars slightly different, which is not that hard seeing the seminar we are using now is a 2 hour seminar I have to teach in 1 hour…. so lots of room to change the story per location.

For the workshop itself however it’s more difficult and I often have to “wing” it depending on the weather, location and of course the needs of the students.

The gear
I’m lucky with my contacts with several importers and dealers, and can often get the gear I want on location. We do travel however with our own cameras and laptop. The Elinchrom gear however is often borrowed to us from local dealers or is rented out in some locations. For the locations we drive ourselves I always carry my own gear somehow that works best for me. So how does the gear for a location workshop look, what do we carry ?

1. Cameras (Canon 5DMKII, Phase One DF/Leaf digital back) and lenses
2. MacBookPro + applejuicze external battery
3. 2x Ranger RX speed + accupacks
4. 1x Ranger Quadra + accupacks
5. 2x Elinchrom heads BXri500
6. In case of emergency a small generator
7. several skyports
8. 2 ipads (later more on this)

On location we use a powerstrip and one convertor to have 4-5 poweroutlets to charge all the accupacks on location.
now why the 2 iPads ?
During the workshops I shoot straight to the laptop and because having 5-8 people stand in front of the laptop can be a bit crowded we use the Leaf Capture utility that will show a full screen image of the captured images on the iPad and iPhones the students hold, this is an awesome way of showing your captures to different people, they can zoom in, scroll through the images etc. Especially with location workshops this is just perfect.

The workshop itself
EVERY workshop is different but somethings will of course always be there like :
1. Working with lightmeter
2. Calibrating the lightmeter
3. Working with the colorcheckers
4. Using natural light
5. Flash ranging from fill in to day to night
6. Dragging the shutter
7. Posing and coaching the model
8. Finding your angle
9. Story telling
and lots lots more, well let’s say it’s intense.

Although we always plan the workshops between 10:00-15:00 they often run a lot longer and are also in most cases ending with a nice group talk while enjoying a drink at the bar and in some case ending in diner….. it’s a lot of fun for all parties.

Throughout the post you have seen some images from the Bristol workshop, let’s hope that Dublin will be similar to location, we have something in mind that’s very interesting…..
At the moment we have 4 seats left, so quickly surf to www.frankdoorhof.com/uk and book your seat.