Tag Archive for: day2night

Outside fashion shot for sunglasses with extreme styling and flash Part III : let’s talk storytelling

/in , /by

This is it

I think we can all agree that gear, lighting, styling, location etc. are all important for a successful shoot. Although during this workshop series we already saw that the location can be transformed quite easily from ok to wow by choosing the right angles and lighting/styling etc.

If you missed the previous ones you can read them here (highly recommended)
Let’s talk about the flash
Let’s talk about gear

Ok so now it’s about story telling, and what do I mean with story telling.

When we look back into history, even as far as the cavemen, the main reason to create “art” was to tell stories. Ranging from one man killing a Bison in the caves to whole paintings containing scenes from the Bible, and everything in between. Now of course there are also still lives and landscapes but I hope you know what I mean 🙂

When we look at what we see online today it’s a boatload of selfies, photos of food or things I can’t mention here. We are bombarded with a huge amount of images every single day. But when is the last time you really stopped to look at something? or when was the last time you were really impressed with an image?

Most of them probably have have the same element

And that’s story telling.
Now story telling can be done in just one image, but also in a series.

During the workshop on location in Emmeloord we find locations that are not immediately awesome, but I show the attendees how, together with an awesome model and styling in this case, you can transform those locations to something great with choosing the right lighting and shooting angles.

This is the second set of that workshop.
For this setup we went to the local beach, we chose a location with some trees behind Nadine and a slight rise.
Nadine brought a lot of Delfts blue we used as props spread around her.
Now the styling on it’s own already did a lot but when I saw that the umbrella was breaking down I decided to also use something else.

Manipulate the sun/ambient light

We talked about this technique a few times in the blog and during digital classroom episodes.
Dragging the shutter.
What I do outside to get the look I like :

  1. First I make sure my cameras EVF is in emulation mode
  2. I will set my camera to “manual” mode and the shutterspeed to 1/125 (when shooting without HSS) and the lowest ISO.
  3. Now I will look through the display and adjust the aperture till I think the scene looks like I want.
  4. Now I will set it ONE stop darker.
  5. Take the Aperture you see in camera for the look you like
  6. Use a lightmeter to meter the strobe at the aperture you liked
  7. start shooting with a shutter speed of 1/60 but with the set aperture

You might wonder why I shoot at 1/60
It’s very easy to explain luckily.
When shooting without HSS I can not shoot faster than 1/125 (sometimes 1/200) this means when I shoot with strobes and I think the background should be darker I have to adjust my strobes, or when I want to experiment I end up with different apertures, meaning different looks due to depth of field. This breaks the total look of a series and can sometimes work and sometimes not.

By adjusting the strobes one stop higher than I thought was perfect and lowering the shutter speed by 1 stop I’m getting the exact result I liked at the start with an added bonus. When I want the background darker I can raise my shutter speed to 1/125 or sometimes 1/200 and get a much darker background, but because I’m shooting with strobes I can also go as a low as 1/30 and sometimes even 1/15th this gives me a nice dynamic range to work with without breaking the look of the shot.

 

The weather

I’m nog just using this technique to adjust the look of the shot, but also to be able to react to changing lighting on location.
And in this case for story telling.
The following series was shot within 5 minutes, so the lighting didn’t really change, however because the umbrella was breaking down I decided to raise the shutter speed and make the whole scene look darker the more the umbrella broke down.

As you can see in the next series, changing the look of a scene by the shutter speed is fast and easy and has a huge impact on the photo. I love to use it.

Let’s first take a look at the gear used :

Annewiek is holding the lightstand on which the Geekoto GT200 is mounted with a large reflector aimed at the model.

And that’s all actually.
So let’s take a look at the results.

Model/Styling : Nadine
Sunglasses : Sparks

www.fotografie-workshops.nl for the Dutch workshops
www.frankdoorhof.com/shop for my gear

Adding a touch of color

/in , /by

In the past few days you have seen some images from the workshop “on location in Emmeloord” with our model Claudia where we look for interesting locations around our own studio.
Today the final part.

One of the things I absolutely love to do on location (or in the studio) is add a touch of color.
Always remember that color evokes emotion.
Think about watching a movie without any tinting or music, you will probably pretty quickly leave the cinema disappointed, unless of course the story is strong enough. But in most cases the reason we love certain scenes/movies is because of the tinting/music used.

So today let’s take a look at some images where I added color on location.

This image is without any added color.
I’m using a Hensel Porty here with the 14″ reflector.
This reflector gives a lot more light than a standard reflector and makes it possible to shoot amazing images even in bright sunlight.
I’m using a variable ND filter to be able to shoot on a wider aperture. When using the Geekoto system I can chose for the HSS options where you can shoot on faster shutter speeds but with standard battery packs like the Hensel Porty you are stuck with the X-sync which is often between 1/125 and 1/200. In situations like this that means that you are almost always shooting at F16 or F22. By using a variable ND filter you can take away some/a lot of light and shoot wide open or on any aperture you like.

For the next shot I’m using a second Hensel Porty but this one is covered with a thick red gel.
I’m using the black diffusion filter here (from the same kit as the variable ND filter) to create a nice lens flare.

I love both shots, but the second one does give me a nice extra mood/feel.
You might say that you can add this in Photoshop in postprocessing, but I disagree, you can mostly easily see when it’s done in real life or added in post processing.

Now you might remember the blogpost where I showed you the Geekoto system for the first time with the red gels.
Let’s to refresh your memory show some of those images.

These were shot with the Geekoto GT200 and GT250.
Small strobes that can shoot on HSS. As you can see I’m creating a nice Day2Night look here and the red really jumps off ow youthe background.

Now for the next images I’m using the exact same setup in the same location but here I switched the Geekoto for the 1200W Hensel porty system.

The Hensel system does have a lot more power but doesn’t support HSS and as you can see they give you results that are incredibly close to each other.
I think this is one of the most interesting parts of the smaller flash systems like the Geekoto they don’t like like much compared to a system like the Porty but due to the use of HSS they do pack an incredible punch.

Of course they can’t compete with the Hensel on durability, recycling speed, flash duration and raw power. But if you don’t need that raw power I think you can do awesome things with the smaller systems, something that wasn’t possible in the past when we still were depending on speedlights only.

 

Working on location and what does flash do?

/in , /by

During the workshop on location in Emmeloord with our model Claudia the theme is to find locations that might look boring and make them interesting enough for some cool shots. in my opinion this is one of the best things you can do to train yourself to create better images.

The reason most people don’t shoot images close to their home is probably that they see it every day and don’t realise anymore that some locations can be great to shoot images in or against. Every day I walk Chewie I see locations where I think “this would be nice to place a model” but somehow you always travel to cool locations to do the same while in essence you could take the same kind of images close you your own location.

Now of course we do want to introduce also some interesting lighting, because if you just shoot something with ambient light it’s boring right?
Or maybe not….
So during the workshop we actually run through several different lighting solutions.

So today let’s take a look at what you can do with just an open parking place.

Let’s start out with ambient light only.

A low angle and a standard preset I created in Luminar AI (you can get those on frankdoorhof.com/shop)

Now let’s add a just a slight amount of flash.
I’m using a Hensel Porty with a 14″ reflector here and to get this effect you really don’t need a lot of power, in essence I’m overpowering the ambient by just 1-1.5 stops.

With retouching you could get something similar quite easily.
Now one of the limitations of shooting with the Hensel Porty is that you are limited to the X-sync which in most cases lies between 1/125 and 1/200. So you will mostly shoot on smaller apertures when using a lot of power. This is why I’m using a variable magnetic ND filter on my lens when shooting with the porty system outside.

I’m using the K&F concept version which you can find in the Frank Doorhof kit which includes 2 Black diffusion filters (1/4 and 1/8) and the variable ND filter, all magnetic of course.

Ok, so now let’s add a lot of light.

Here I’m totally overpowering the ambient light and also chose a different angle to enhance the contrast even more.
One might say…”hey this is cheating because we don’t see the sky anymore”
So of course I also shot some with the sky included but we did move the set a bit to make the series more varied.

This is something I always highly recommend.
If you shoot all images from the same angle and in the same location it can be very nice but also a bit boring, and you don’t have to travel or even walk to another location, it’s often a matter of choosing a location where you can shoot from different angles and create something new with every angle. It doesn’t only speed up your workflow but also give your client much more different images for the same price, so they will be much more willing to hire you again for another job.

As you can see there is a huge difference between the first and last images.
However in reality it’s “only” the difference in lighting and by choosing different angles.

So the next time you are shooting on location look around for areas that can be shot from different angles and don’t be afraid to shoot with or without strobes.

 

Shooting models in the sun with Geekoto Off-Camera Flash

/in , , /by

Geekoto is the perfect off-camera flash to get full control over your light. In the studio and on location!  Read more about shooting models in the sun with Geekoto Off-Camera Flash.

 

During the location in Emmeloord workshop with Claudia, it was the first time I used the Geekoto GT200 and GT250 during a workshop. I only shot the first set with the set with Geekoto and after that, we switched over to the powerful Hensel Porty System which images I will upload tomorrow. The weather was great. So, we had to shoot model Claudia in the bright sun with Geekoto Off-Camera Flash.

Yes, the Hensel Porty system is with its 1200W and large reflectors a lot more powerful, but for those small strobes, the Geekoto’s surprised all the attendees including myself.

We started with just using the Geekoto and a reflector on the Bowens mount.
Now I have to add it was very sunny.

As you can see it’s pretty easy to push away the ambient light, and it’s easy shooting models in the sun with Geekoto Off-Camera Flash. And this was not even on full power but actually on almost the lowest setting, adding a reflector with highly reflective material really helps a lot.

For the next set, Claudia only moved to another angle where the sun was a bit more challenging especially because I decided to also add a red gel and our Rogue dome to the setup, now you have to realize that adding a gel will take away a considerable amount of light, but as you can see in the results, the system had no problem keeping the mood I wanted.

Now the original idea for us was to use the Geekoto system as a replacement for our Nissin system making it easier for me to demonstrate our Rogue products during trade shows and workshops/events on location where you would normally need speedlights. But the Geekoto’s impressed us so much for the price that we decided to go a few steps further.

Starting next week we will be the official distributor for the Benelux for them.
We are building the website and will add the products to our shop this weekend, so if you want to order please send us an email or wait till we add them to the shop in the coming days.

For the time being, we have built the pages on:www.geekoto.nl