Tag Archive for: photographer

A new model in our studio for a very special session and she rocked it

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Trial by fire

For the workshops we are always looking for new models.
Before I use a model in a group I always invite them for a test session. A test session is a great way to get to know each other, explain how the workshops work and take some photos for her portfolio and for me the see how she/he is in front of the camera.

For Jannaika it was a bit different 😀
If you have been following my work for a few years you probably remember Sanne. A few years ago we worked a lot with Sanne and also did some sessions for the Miss competitions  Sanne organises.

Jannaika is Miss Photogenic 2024 and Sanne was convinced she would be a perfect model for me.
And you never guessed it… we needed a model for the Digital Classroom.
So the images you see here were shot during a live stream, and we literally met 5 minutes before we went live. It doesn’t happen a lot but I was impressed.

I think we will see more of Jannaika in the future.

 

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 

Why the blog or website is more important at the moment

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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.

Frank Doorhof Blog

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……

Frank Doorhof's Blog

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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Thanks again for your support

Frank & Annewiek Doorhof

 

 

 

 

Outside fashion shoot for sunglasses with extreme styling and flash Part I

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Outside Fashion Shoot for Sunglasses

Transform something ordinary to awesome!

One of the more challenging workshops is without a doubt “on location in Emmeloord”
During this workshop, I take the attendees with me to locations that at first sight might look incredibly boring. However by using the styling of the model and of course the choice of lighting and shooting angle it becomes clear pretty quickly that even locations that are not that interesting can transform into a great location for shoots. Read more about this outside fashion shoot for sunglasses with extreme styling, part 1.

The reason this workshop is very important is because during most workshops you are shooting in already great locations or nice studio setups.
The thing is, that in reality it hardly ever happens you shoot a client or wedding/event in a castle/urbex/etc location. And also the light is not always perfect. Most of the time we are shooting in office buildings, outside in a forest/dune/city environment, etc. They are not really super inspiring locations.

And that’s the whole deal

In this workshop, I show how easy it is to create interesting photos in not-so-interesting locations. Or let me rephrase those locations that look uninteresting at first sight.

During the workshop I also try to keep the gear as minimalistic as possible, I’m using one of our Geekoto GT200s and a large reflector plus the Rogue Flashbender (Frank Doorhof edition). In the past, we had to carry around rather large battery packs and “large” heads. And I had to shoot on 1/125 because HSS was not supported. Now we are using so-called hybrid strobes which are the perfect marriage between a studio strobe and a speedlight. This combination means I can shoot ETTL and HSS on location (or manual of course) with a nice shallow depth of field if I want it. Or a deeper depth of field if that fits the photo, and shoot a full day with just one battery.  Thanks to the large reflector we had still 10% left in the battery after the whole workshop (5 locations 4 shooters).

By lowering the ambient light you can really make your model pop out, now lower your shooting angle and you can already get much more interesting shots.

In the next blog post, I’ll explain a bit more about the large reflector.
For today let’s take a look at the first setup we did with Nadine. This is just a treeline next to our studio functioning as a border between our studio and the neighbours.

Outside Fashion Shoot

Nadine brought some fake flowers and put them in the trees

Outside Fashion Shoot

In this setup, we also used the Rogue FlashBender XL Pro for a different look.

And the setup with the FlashBender.

In the next blog post I’ll show you the large reflector and explain why it’s awesome for location work.

Outside Fashion Shoot

Model/Styling: Nadine
Sunglasses: Sparks

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