Tag Archive for: doorhof

Small spaces are limiting? … nah

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One of the most heard excuses is “my space is too small for a good shot”.
Well you might not be able to shoot a model in front of a white seamless, or fit in a whole family, or make a model jump (although that could be funny… for the photographer, not the model,….. nah don’t do it), but in essence EVERY location has potential as long as you use it to the max.

 

In this case we used a small staircase that is located at the back end of our studio and leads up to the “stage”. Our building is actually and old “church” and this was where the preacher was standing, it’s a tight space but for me it’s always fun to shoot there.

 

As you can see in the following shots I used some smoke to give the scene a bit more of an edge, but I also used my lighting to the max by moving around my model. Now always remember that smoke acts as both a diffuser and reflector so the more smoke you get… well let me put it this way, it’s always different. Also remember that as soon as the smoke gets in between the model and the front light source “all bets are off” smoke will start to act as a reflector and it will be one big white out.

 

We used one Elinchrom beauty dish with grid from the front and one gridded (and later open) reflector from the back with a blue gel.
Styling and model : Nadine

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For the next one I left in a bit more red.

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But you don’t always have to use the same pose of course…..
Why not shoot one from the back for example.

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And while you’re at it. Why not move around your model and get a completely different look?

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As you can see with the same light setup and the same very tight space you can create something really cool… just think outside the box… or in these kind of cases probably inside the box 😀

 

Good luck.

It’s all about expression, especially with glamour

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I’m not really a glamour shooter, but when I do I love to play with the expression of the model.
For me glamour always should have something that’s a bit “naughty” so working with the expression of the model is vital (as with all of photography I believe). In this case I choose a lower angle and had our model Linda on the floor lit by an Elinchrom Deep Octa with grid from the top. A very simple setup but very effective due to the fast light fall off (if placed correctly).

 

 

Camera : Sony A7RII
Lens : 70-200 F2.8 (Sony)

 

 

As you can see I always play with different expressions, going from rather subtle to a bit more extreme.
Remember that when shooting glamour you can very easily go over the border of glamour to erotic by a subtle expression chance, it’s up to you of course which way you like to go, but as you can see here, the same lighting setup and the same position/model and even retouching give you 3 totally different moods. So always remember to work with your model through different expressions, they REALLY can make the shot.

 

 

Oh and a nice BW conversion also helps sometimes 😀

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Digital Classroom July 1

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Today we finished the second broadcast of our digital classroom project.
In this project I try to bridge the cap between the videos and the normal workshops.
In the videos you watch and learn but in workshops you can have a great interaction with our team to ask whatever questions you want and I will incorporate that into the workshop and because we work with smaller groups during the workshops that is an even greater learning experience, but there was absolutely nothing in between so… we created “Digital classroom”.

 

In “Digital classroom” we stream live from our studio and I show different techniques on both lighting, working with the model and of course retouching (and much more). Now setting something like this up takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money so we are incredibly grateful to have the support of BenQ and Rogue as our main sponsors to make this possible, but also thanks to CameraNu.nl and LedGo we now have proper lighting on set (also not unimportant).

 

Because we use Google+ for the broadcast people can ask questions during the broadcast which (if possible) will be answered on the spot, another advantage is that as soon as the broadcast stops it’s available for those who missed it….. so here you go enjoy the “Digital classroom” from July 1st.
The next one will be on August 26.

Digital classroom EP1 (the test)

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Last week saw the release of a new series in our educational program.
I’ve done a lot of workshop and webinars and both are 100% different, a workshop is a real 1:1 experience (we always work with small groups), a webinar is more a “watch and learn” experience.

 

For a long time I wanted to do something in between and never had the chance to do it, setting this up costs a lot of money as you can imagine (different camera angles, assistants, fast internet etc) but thanks to our friends at BenQ, Rogue and of course Elinchrom we finally were able to pull it off.

 

We dubbed it the “try out episode” but as far as we could see everything went very smoothly and what we ended up doing was a 3 hour intense instructional video with interaction from you guys.

 

We did not promote it a lot because we didn’t want a lot of people online if it would go wrong 😀 but… don’t worry we recorded it and you see it via this blogpost (or on our YouTube channel of course).

 

Please feel free to share the link, watch it and comment on it here or on YouTube, the idea is to do these kind of sessions 10x a year and normally they will have a topic just like the workshops, so except some smoke, movement, masks, location work etc.

 

Is it the same as a workshop?
No of course not 😀
A workshop is much more intense and has way more interaction, but I think we bridged the gap between a webinar and a small group workshop.

 

Is it the same as your instructional videos?
No of course not 😀
The instructional videos and the KelbyOne videos I do are much more in depth and will have totally different topics. The idea of the digital classroom is to show you guys how we work, what we do to complete a photoshoot and you can interact and ask questions, it’s not meant to replace the instructional videos or our other videos like on KelbyOne, if this gives you the hunger for more…. there are actually those options… book a workshop or watch/buy the instructional videos.

Enjoy.

Many thanks to our friends at BenQ, Rogue and Elinchrom to make this possible.