Sometimes we will have a guest who will blog an article, if you have suggestions let me know.

Guestblog Ian Sitren shooting Def Leppard

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Ian I met a few years ago during one of the first workshops I taught in the states (Los Angeles to be exact), due to the fires both my models had to cancel and luckily my organizer knew Ian and thought he would know some models that could fill in the spots, and he did… so in fact he saved the day. During the second workshops in Los Angeles a year later Ian also helped out with the models and we became friends and stayed in contact via the internet. Both working with medium format and shooting people we always have something to chat about.

 

During my stay in Los Angeles this year I met up with Ian again and the beautiful model/actress Maria Bertrand (with which I did a shoot that same day in which Ian was assisting me with a flashlight from the iPhone :D), while we were having diner the idea came up to have Ian do a guestblog on my blog and of course he was willing to help me out, but what story…. (he has so many)… seeing that I’m a HUGE Def Leppard fan we eventually ended up with the story about his shoot with Phil Collen. So without wasting to much of your time…. here is Ian.

 

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Blackrapid by Annewiek Doorhof

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Today a very special review/guestblog.
My wonderful wife Annewiek Doorhof will share her experience with the BlackRapid products today.

Some background information.
I loved the BlackRapid products but somehow they were never 100% comfortable for me, I’m big and pretty tall and they were always just a BIT too small for my liking, although I know other people with my size are using them, I love my camera a bit lower. Somehow this reached BlackRapid and they contacted me if I would give them the dimensions I would like, as you can imaging I was surprised when not 2 weeks later I got a package in the mail with a custom made BlackRapid strap…. and I LOVE it, I’m wearing it all the time.

Every since every exhibition we’re at I always visit BlackRapid to show them I still use it 🙂 and of course talk about new stuff.
During Photokina they saw Annewiek carrying her videocamera and made her happy with a nice BlackRapid strap, today her review.

Guestblog on color

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Today we have a very special guestblog by Martin de Bouter.
He is specialized in color, something where without a doubt my heart is, and is often forgotten by many starting/pro photographers. So I think this blogpost will be a very interesting read for many.

 

Back in the old days
First let me introduce myself. I own a commercial stock-site with Dutch images, I am picture editor and photographer.

 

Long, long time ago, before they invented digital photography, there was a profession that we called lithographer. Yes, I know I sound like an old man now, but this isn’t about the ancient times of Fred and Wilma, etching in stone tablets. This is about what you loose when your wonderful picture is sold and printed on paper. Not the beautiful paper they use for musea (we can only hope to reach that kind of exposure), but the paper they use for magazines or newspapers. Oh what a disappointment is waiting. Not only for us, the photographers, but also for our costumer! All these beautiful colors, looking like they’ve been using the wrong washing powder…

 

Back in the old days (here I go again ;-), there was a professional who translated the colors of your photo or your slide material into printing colors. The colors that are used by an old-fashioned slide had to be translated to the printing colors Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Nowadays (sorry) there is almost no lithographer left, nowadays we’ve got colour profiles!

 

Well, I’ll make things short. This means photographers are expected to deliver images that can be reproduced in printing colors. And photographers? They want color! The more, the better. Beautiful blue tones, a lot of saturation and even HDR images. Looking wonderful on the screen, sparkling, bright, and a selling argument!

 

Okay, let’s see what happens.
The first image is in RGB (made in Adobe RGB with the profile removed) and the second image is in CMYK (and set back to RGB to make viewing possible in your browser).

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City light guestblog

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Today a very interesting guestblog about shooting cities.
I’m sure you gonna love this one.

City Light
First of all, I feel very priviliged to be given the opportunity to write this guest blog at Franks’ website. Thanks a lot!

 

All visitors of this website will know that photography is about the Quest for The Light. When thinking about cities, your best chances for finding The Light are dawn and dusk. Each with their own character: dawn for the best available natural light, and dusk for the often astonishing combination of city lights against a dark blue, red, or pink sky. I will now focus on dawn in cities.

 

I love wandering around in big cities, as there are always so many objects to capture creatively. Preferably, I’ll do that very early. Temperatures are nice in warm summers, not too many people around, and quite a chance to find The Light. I would like to share some of my learnings of my photo safaris.

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