Tag Archive for: Fashion

The ultimate workshop November 21-22nd Emmeloord

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I’ve been teaching workshops for a few years now, most workshops run for a full day and although very intense there is always so much more to learn, so most students visit the workshops several times. The reason for this is very simple, I never try to duplicate workshops, there are so many things you can do with lighting, location, styling, the models etc. that it would be a shame to teach the same workshop material over and over…..

 

For the one day workshops I have several themes, for example “working on location”, “working with artificial and available light”, “Duo shoots”, “Masks”, “Smoke”, “Retouching” etc. etc. all these topics are so broad that they are already difficult to jam into one day…. so last year the idea actually grew to do a multiple day workshop, however when I do something I always want to make sure that what I deliver is solid, there is no sense in doing a workshop in 2 days or 3 days that can be taught in one day by just talking faster…..

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So slowly the idea for the “multiple day workshop” grew and got more shape.
After the first trials the students actually came up with the name and called it “The Ultimate workshop” and I have to say I agree and use that name for these workshops.

 

In 2-3 days you will get so much information it will make your head spin, we are working as a small team (group size is always limited to max 10-12 people depending on the location) to create literally a multitude of different scenarios. The ultimate workshops are the best workshops I can teach, and I dare to say, probably the best on the market if you’re into model photography.

 

What can you expect?
Of course we work with our very best models during these workshops, so next to learning a lot you will also get a real portfolio boost. All workshops start with an Q&A session. In this session you can actually tell me what you want to learn and I will incorporate all these questions into the workshop ahead.

 

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A tip on skin retouching

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One of the most made mistakes during retouching is “overdoing it” on the skin.
In my opinion the final image should have nice skin, not a barby doll.

 

You always have to see skin as 2 separate things.
1. the pores and details
2. the color

 

The biggest problem is often the color.
When you look at a models face you can often see many different colors, sometimes in smaller areas next to each other, sometimes in bigger areas, overall it makes the face often look very “uneven”.

 

For years people have been trying to counteract this by blurring, putting in new details by adding noise (a very nice technique overall) or using plugins like Imagenomic Portraiture or Topaz Clean 3 (2 which I often use). The results are often very nice, especially the 2 mentioned above can give you great results and they are very fast (Imagenomic can be even done as an action for the same model, making retouching a series very fast). When you wanted perfection there always was/is dodging and burning, a very time consuming process that can easily take you up to 3-4-5+ hours to complete.

 

A few weeks ago I got into the whole “Frequency Separation” technique for skin technique and must say that I’m very impressed with it, at the moment it’s my main “to go to” technique for a “perfect retouch”.

 

In essence you split the details and the skin tones making it possible to literally blend the skin tones into each other creating a very nice and even skin appearance, but because the details are on top you don’t loose these. Now because the details are separated from the skin tones you can retouch all you want on that layer without worrying about “infecting” tones and luminosity.

 

Of course I first have to try out techniques before I share them, but at the moment I feel more than confident that this is a very powerful and great technique that can benefit every fashion/portrait/etc. photographer so I created a small video on the use of this technique for the Quite Frankly series.

 

You can find it here :

 

Remember that the retouching in the video is rather “sloppy” when using this technique you can do a pretty good retouch of the face in about 5-10 minutes, and ok it’s a lot longer than running Imagenomic Portraiture (10-15 seconds) but the results is A LOT better.

Changing your angle can have a huge impact

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I tell this many times during the workshops but choosing the right angle is very important.
A lot of people will be familiar by the effect that moving the light source has, however often one forgets that when you move around yourself the effect is actually the “same”. On location this can be an a very powerful tool as you can see in the examples today.

 

First we see the image shot from the front.

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Using reflections

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One of the things that’s always a guarantee for a good shot (or an interesting shot) is using reflections.
Reflections can be seen in many surfaces, but also in water of course.
So when you’re shooting in a location where you see some pools of water make sure to figure out a way to use it in at least some of your shots.
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