Tag Archive for: modelphotography

Sometimes 15 minutes is enough for a commercial photo shoot

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Planning is everything in a photo shoot

Sometimes it doesn’t go as planned. Our planning for this commercial photo shoot was good, but it ended in only 15 minutes shooting.
Recently we did a photoshoot for the new Sparks sunglasses collection.
The idea was to shoot the series in Amsterdam, but due to the weather, we decided at the last minute to change the location to Emmeloord so we would have the studio as a backup. and once again we found out that planning a for commercial photoshoot can go differently than you thought.

Rescheduling was impossible because the tickets were already bought from the UK to the Netherlands and back. So we decided to go for it.

Oops… planning for a shoot can go wrong

When the client arrived we started by planning the whole shoot, and to our horror, we found out they had to be back in Amsterdam in….. 2 hours.
This meant we had to drive to the location (Urk), do the photo shoot, and drive the client back to Lelystad, and from there to Amsterdam. In the car to Urk I, actually for the first time, realized I had exactly 15 minutes to do the whole shoot.

Seeing our client was here all the way from the UK I wanted to give them more than they asked for, but 15 minutes… would be a new record 😀

Flash and natural light, ETTL rocks

I’m not a big fan of ETTL but luckily our Geekoto strobes support both HSS and ETTL. So I decided to shoot almost everything in 3 fold. One time natural light, immediately after that with strobes as a fill-in light, and then the final shot with a more day-to-night look.

When you set this up correctly it’s possible to shoot 3 different looks in one setup. Just move your body a little bit or change positions. And it almost looks like you did a lot, while in essence, it was a short session.

For the location, I chose the harbor of Urk. Because we only had 15 minutes I knew that from a low angle, I could get a nice sky. But with just changing my own position I can shoot Urk in the background or all the boats in the harbor. And when walking back the killer-whale and some other nice locations where you can just stand and shoot.

Annewiek was functioning as my VAL *(Voice Activated Lightstand) and held the GT200 with the S26 softbox under different angles during the shoot, again to maximize the amount of different “looks”.

In this case, I shot the whole series with ETTL and HSS. This meant I could work very fast on location. But the downside is that all photos needed slight adjustments in Lightroom. Not a big deal but personally I’m a lightmeter guy 😀

Anyway, enough talk. Although our planning for this commercial photo shoot was different, we got great results, and the client is satisfied.

Here are some images from the session. It’s not everything I shot, but it is a nice overview.

Planning for a commercial photo shoot Planning for a commercial photo shoot Planning for a commercial photo shoot Planning for a commercial photo shoot Planning for a commercial photo shoot

 

Sparks Sunglasses Website 

See the video of the workshop outside, where we also used the Geekoto.

check this post of the shoot with Nadine with Sparks Sunglasses 

A horror clown in our studio (in color)

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Storytelling with a horror clown (in color)

For me, storytelling is always a vital part of my photography.
Even when I photograph a CEO or artist I always try to dive into the person/product/company to get something that really fits their company/person perfectly.

And sometimes you just go all out.

The fun with workshops

Teaching workshops is one of the things I love the most. Working with a group towards a result and in between explaining all the techniques, and ideas, work with styling, poses, and of course props. The images you are going to see today might not be something you shoot every day, but… and that’s the thing a lot of people miss.

If you can walk 10 km with ease, it’s no problem to walk 2-3 km.
This might sound a bit weird, but this works for many things.
If you can shoot super creative situations, and know how to handle your lighting, poses, and how to coach your model to do the most bizarre, weird, or awesome stuff it becomes MUCH easier to coach a CEO or to shoot a super creative image for a product.

Storytelling

In today’s blog post the results from one set with our model Felisa.
And although you don’t recognize her, the choice of model is vital for these kinds of shots.
One might say, she is just wearing a clown suit and props, so what’s difficult?

When you take away the expression in the face, it’s all about body language, and believe it or not this can be incredibly difficult for a model, and photographer to pull off.

I think she did great.

So let’s take a look at some images first, and then I explain a bit more.

storytelling

let you model try to grab the camera and it looks really scary

storytelling

The idea of this shoot with the horror clown (in color)

I don’t really like to repeat myself, but sometimes ideas are just so much fun and open for changes that you can repeat them with a fresh outcome.
Many years ago I was invited to introduce a new Phase One 101MP camera in a studio in New York.

Let me first say I love New York so the prospect of shooting in a studio there is always exciting.
The problem was that I “had” to use a gray seamless background for some images and that day I didn’t feel like using that so I decided to just place the model behind it, cut a hole, and let the model just stick her head through and later hold the camera. Great shots and loads of fun.

A few years later I did a similar thing during a trade show in the UK. Both were more fashion and fun-related.
For this workshop, we wanted to do something completely different, and as a horror fan, the idea quickly popped into my head that it would be awesome to shoot it with a killer clown.

Getting props to tell the story

I already did something with a big knife in the past so this time we wanted to do something a bit more “big”.
A hammer is fun, but what about a chainsaw, with a little bit of a hint to my all-time favorite actor and character Bruce Campbell/Ash.

Of course, we needed some backlighting and smoke.
So I used a Geekoto GT400 in the back with a large reflector and red gel.
The reason I’m using a large reflector is because I needed a lot of light due to the seamless paper. If you would use a gelled softbox it would not emit enough light to pull this off.

In the front we experimented with a softbox and a striplight with a grid, you can probably spot which is which 😀

So let’s take a look at the rest of the images.

If you also want to visit one of my workshops and learn all about light and storytelling? Check www.frankdoorhof.com or www.photography-workshops.eu
We will be in The Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK this year for events and workshops.

storytelling another angle storytelling with a horror clown (in color)

 

Read the blog about the Outside Fashion Shot for Sunglasses with model and stylist Nadine

This blog is about Working creatively with seamless paper 

This is the blog about a recent workshop: storytelling to set the mood 

 

Mixing light sources in the studio flash vs continuous lighting

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Mixing lights can be awesome

And something we sometimes have to do! Because the location we are shooting in has some very strong lights, or maybe lights that cannot be taken out, or that just look interesting to include. There can be many reasons why to include lights that are in your set/location. So continue reading about mixing light sources.

Video about mixing light sources

In today’s video, I talk about how I included the studio lights in a photo with Claudia during one of the workshops.
I also explain the main lighting setup and show the results from that set.

If you have any questions feel free to drop us an email and who knows you will see your question answered in one of our next posts/videos.

Want to visit a workshop?
visit www.photography-workshops.eu for our Dutch workshops, but also for all our workshops abroad like the UK and Belgium.

 

Check out this blog about Claudia and the white background with just 3 umbrellas

 

Using two or three umbrellas for a perfect white background a video tutorial

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The white background

Is often one of those backgrounds we all use once in a while, and some have even build a complete career around it.
When I started out with my learning process I was lucky enough to find out about Dean Collins so I started using a lightmeter almost immediately which makes setting up a white background (and everything else) a lot easier and faster. But still I ran into a lot of problems.

Over the years I’ve tried different ways to shoot this setup.
At one point I was using two strobes on the background, two strip lights as accents and one main light.
The problem always was the floor. The accent lights would give double shadows, this by the way was solved by angling the strip lights slightly up and using grids, but that didn’t solve my other problem, the floor itself.

The miracle of plexiglas

When using the standard setup the main issue was always the floor.
The background would be nice and white, the model was perfectly lit, the accents were nice, but the floor….
You can do it in Photoshop but then you have to edit every single shot, plus it looks the model is floating, so I added some shadows.. and realised it must be possible to do it faster and easier.

Enter, Plexiglas.
By placing transparant plexiglas on the floor you can redirect the light and create a perfect white background which seamlessly blends in with the background, it’s a simple trick of reflections. And the cool thing… you can also use transparant plexiglas on other colors, it’s always giving an awesome reflection.

I’ve talked about this extensively in this blogpost, but today I also show you in the video how I use three and even two umbrellas to create the perfect white background for a full body model including accents… yeah it’s really possible and super easy (and cheap).

Gear used :
3x Geekoto GT400
1x Rogue travel kit with the black umbrella and sleeve (main light) and the white umbrella.
1x Rogue white umbrella.

The nice thing about the Rogue umbrellas is that they are made of Fibreglass which makes them very durable and super easy/light to setup.

In this video I show you how the setup works.