Frank Doorhof blog

Back to square one?

When we started with the internet (ok now I feel old) we used dial-up connections and a small booklet to write down the websites. And of course, as a company, we dreamed about having our own website on this amazing (but incredibly slow) internet. This article is about our Frank Doorhof blog, and why we (and you) need a website.

It wasn’t long before that dream came true and our company was on the World Wide Web.. We have several websites. FrankDoorhof, Studio FD (Dutch) and Photography-workshops.eu

You can read English blogs on FrankDoorhof.com and Dutch blogs at StudioFD.nl

More reach means more customers

But how do you lead people towards your website? At first via the (believe it or not) newspapers, flyers, and stickers on our products and invoices. But then….. the revolution of social media started to happen.
In the Netherlands for a lot of people, it started with websites and discussion forums. For me, it was a site called Dutchheaven which really made a huge impact on how to reach people and network Plus there was a discussion forum and chat room.

Not a lot later in the Netherlands, we saw a new network called Hyves. In essence, you could compare this to Facebook. It was not yet interesting for a company, but it was a great way to get in contact with people with the same interests as you. And slowly of course also companies started to discover “social media”.

Social Media took over

When Hyves stopped most people (if not all) went to Facebook.
This was the first time for us that we really started to use Facebook for our business including the Photography studio and workshops. And it worked like a charm. Direct contact with your audience, a nice and clean interface, great messaging, and no spam.

Social media? or filtered media?

When I take a few steps back and look at the social media landscape at the moment, I have to be honest it’s not good. Facebook filters a lot of messages and comments, which means I don’t see comments (random), followers don’t see all my posts, and the last year using the message function is a disaster because 90% is spam with messages about my page being deleted (don’t click on those links :D) and deleting them is a one by one deal (please add batch delete).

But it isn’t much better on other platforms.
Instagram is nice, but there is no real community with discussions, for sharing images it’s great just like Threads, but it’s hard to explain techniques or lighting setups in depth when you can’t use links or layouts.

LinkedIn is nice but not for everyone in your target audience.

And X (Twitter), what can I say?
It has changed a lot, some things are better but I have a lot of issues with the hate, no moderation, and an enormous amount of fake news and conspiracy theories. Plus the limit on characters makes it almost impossible to explain lighting setups etc.

The solution: Don’t build your brand on rented land

Our website has been online for a long time and has always aimed at sharing photos but most of all also sharing techniques, tips and tricks, videos, and of course, answering your questions. In the last decade or so, the focus might have shifted away a bit from the website due to the immense popularity of social media. But as mentioned before I think it’s time for our website to be the main focus again.

I’ve been adding loads of new articles about lighting, photography in general, results from Digital Classrooms, and a lot more in the last few months, so I’m sure you will find something you like. And I will continue to add articles to the blog, so make sure you add them to your bookmarks, or……

on our blog, we share how-to lighting setup, including results

Building a community

As mentioned before one of the strongest points for education is that you can always ask whatever you want and get an answer or opinion from the community or the site owner. And this is exactly what makes social media great for connecting people and education.

So under each article, you can leave a comment on the blog
Feel free to ask questions, share your work, or just share your tips about the subject. Registration is 100% free and you help us to build the community which leads to more articles.

Conclusion

I think a lot of people and companies have been focusing a lot on social media in the last decade or so. However, the generation now is leaving school is already a lot less active on social media. I think that’s why it’s now the right time to, besides your social media presence, also to focus on a nice website where your clients can connect instead of just watching static pages.

Feel free to add your opinions, and share the article with your social media followers 😀

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Frank & Annewiek Doorhof

Because size matters, also outside

Today Part II from the workshop “Working on location in Emmeloord”
In this workshop, the challenge is to use not-so-interesting locations and create awesome shots.
In the previous blogpost we showed set 1 and talked a bit about the gear, today we dive a little bit deeper into the deep reflector. What gear do you need for an outside fashion shoot?

But first, let’s take a look at the setup.

The third set we used during the workshop (set II will follow the next time) was a small house near the beach. This is an interesting location but in all honesty, I had the most trouble with this one to create something interesting. But by using the lines in the location and changing my angles of shooting, I think we got some interesting looks.

For the images, I used our Geekoto GT200 and a large reflector

Outside my favorite gear is of course Annewiek, but also my iPad in the Ulanzi iPad holder and a large reflector.

Outside Fashion Shoot Gear, the must-have reflector

As you can see this is a pretty large reflector.
And that’s exactly the reason I love using those on location.
The thing is that even with a 200W strobe you are still not “killing” the sun from let’s say 3 meters distance. And when you love those Day2Night shots or love to shoot HSS you will have to run almost constantly on full power. But even with fill-in flash…. ok you get the idea without any reflectors even a 200W hybrid strobe with HSS is not perfect for all day Day2Night photography

However, as soon as we add light shapers, the story becomes different.

When we add a striplight like the Rogue flashbenders or any other brand of course we will actually lose light output compared to the bare strobe.
But luckily we can also add light to the output.

You probably also know from studio use that reflectors can have a huge impact on the light output of your strobes. And the same goes for outside. We are using a Bowens converter to hold our Geekoto and connect the reflector. The reason the reflector is so deep is that it will focus the light more the deeper the reflector (on average, it also depends on the material of course). In usage, this can mean the difference between shooting a strobe on 1/3rd power instead of full power, and that is something you really notice.

As a bonus I love the look of these deeper reflectors, they are not as harsh as some smaller reflectors but they still give a tremendous deep shadow and high contrast. If you order one make sure you also order a grid if that’s available. I’m using a generic brand from AliExpress, if you are shooting with Hensel it’s called the 14″ reflector (which is even larger than this one) and for Elinchrom it’s called the MaxiLight or MaxiSpot. I highly recommend getting one for outside work. The reflector is really my favorite gear on an outside fashion shoot.

The iPad solution is another must-have for your shoot on location

As you can see in the image I’m using an iPad on location.
I’ve been using MacBooks for years but the disadvantage of a MacBookPro is that they are very fragile on location, they can easily fall, attract dust like crazy, and have loads of openings to collect dirt. Plus they are very expensive to replace or repair.

The iPad on the other hand can be securely fastened to just one stand with the awesome Ulanzi holder (we got so many questions about it that we added it to our webshop).
The nice thing about the iPad is that it will run all day on one charge and the light output is really nice for outside work, as long as there is no direct sunlight hitting the screen of course.

During this workshop I shot wireless to the iPad but in 99% of the cases I’m using an IQwire USBc-USBc 15meter tether cable to shoot to the iPad using CasCable. I’ve been using this combination for a while now and it never disappointed me. If something goes wrong the advantage of the iPad is that you just close an app and start it again and it all works fine again. But to be complete I’ve experienced a super smooth workflow so far with little to no problems. This is also the main reason you see me using the iPad more and more during shows. Especially with Adobe releasing great updates to their Lightroom and Photoshop apps which makes the iPad a real workstation nowadays.

Especially on location, you want gear you carry around easily and don’t have to be afraid that something falls during the hike to the next location.