Tag Archive for: photography

Top of Denmark

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One of the things I absolutely love to do when traveling is finding places that are a bit “weird” or different. And in Denmark we wanted to visit two of these sites, the first is a lighthouse that was captured by sand (later more on this) and one was the absolute top of Denmark called Skagen. This is where both the Skagerrak and Kattegat come together, this gives a very dangerous situation and this is why swimming is not allowed in this area.

 

When you arrive in the location there is a huge parking and a small tractor bringing you to the point…. we of course decided to walk, it was only 500mtrs…. well that must have been the longest 500 mtrs ever, but we are used to walking so it was more than doable but if you are a bit less fit make sure to take the tractor, walking through the sand is pretty heavy.

 

On the way to the destination you pass some old bunkers, which of course also are interesting to visit, but that’s not why we where here, but I of course had to take some quick snaps 😀

Denemarken Augustus 7 2014 16

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Using masks

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The face is an incredibly important part of a shoot, it’s where we get the expressions from, and of course it’s the first thing we look at.
So we have to make sure the face is always correctly lit and visible, right?

 

 

Well most of the times yes, but sometimes it can be very nice to play a bit with masks.
The nice thing is that first of all the mask itself will have some form of expression, but the thing that really draws me towards the use of masks is the way some of them respond to the light and what’s also very obvious is that when the model wears a mask she/he will have to work more with the body to create the look/expression you want, and this can give some interesting shots especially when you start combining it with some harsh shadows.

 

In this blogpost some images I shot with Anna during a webinar last week.

Anna Juli 16 2014 Webinar C1 B (1 of 2)

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Many different looks from one setup

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Often I’m asked what kind of setups I use and what kind of modifiers.
What people often don’t realize is that with only one modifier you can chance a lot just by playing with the angles and controlling the contrast/lightfall off. In fact placing a light closer or further away also makes a huge impact on the image look, add to this the option to feather a light source (using the sides of the light) and you know that there is a lot possible with one modifier and light.

 

It gets even more interesting when you are combining two strobes and for example add a gel to one of them.
During the workshop this weekend I made a setup like this with our model Lennaa and decided it would be a cool thing to share on the blog.

 

I started out with one strobe with a red gel.

Lenaa Juli 25 20142025

To get a bit more “punch” in the image I added another strobe without gel under the same angle to mix the two.

Lenaa Juli 25 20142035 Read more

Peter Hurley at StudioFD

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I met up with Peter Hurley in Atlanta during Photoshop World, now for everyone who doesn’t know who Peter Hurley is…
Peter Hurley is specialized in shooting headshots, you can call them portraits but that’s not correct, a headshot is an image that you will use for a casting agency and that really has to represent that person, in short a good headshot can get on you the red carpet, a bad headshot can make you work at McDonalds. And Peter does his work very well and is considered by many as one of the best in the world. His videos on the jawline, illuminating the face etc are very popular online and help a lot of people better understanding how to shoot the “perfect” headshot.

CF022833

After Photoshop World Peter and I met up in his studio in New York (where he invited me to shoot my new headshot) and during a nice diner he told me he was doing a workshop tour in Europe in July, now originally the Netherlands was not on the list, so I told him he could use our studio to host the workshop and voila the Netherlands was added to the list 🙂

 

So last weekend it was time for the Peter Hurley workshop.
I did hang around during the workshop of course and it’s fun to see how Peter really made a science out of the art of the headshot, it’s actually quite amazing to see what his though process is. The first day was mostly spend inside and talking about the theory, although after diner the group did get out for some nice natural light + strobe shots. The second day was completely different with loads of shoots in different setups and (thanks to some of our models) also with some extra faces.

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