Tag Archive for: photography

Yashica scans in BW

I love shooting film as you probably know by now.
On a recent trip I bought a Yashica TLR camera (124 mat) and have been using this a lot lately during travel, the advantage is that it’s a really “small” camera but shoots 6×6 film so you get an amazing quality, also the lens is incredibly sharp so the results are awesome so to say 🙂

 

All images are shot with natural light.
Now a lot of people ask me “why film, is it better than digital?”
Well let me put it this way, No it’s not better than digital, but it’s different.
And that’s the main reason I shoot film, the look is so different from digital that for me it’s another way to present my work, plus I just love the whole “magic” of developing/scanning your images and see what you got a few days after you shot it, it forces you think even more than you do with digital.

 

Today I show you some of the BW film I shot during the UK tour.
I did all the developing at home, after a night of drying the photos are scanned with a Reflecta MF5000 with Silverfast software. Especially the software with which you scan is incredibly important because in essence that’s your “raw developer” but it does much more, and I found Silverfast to be superior to other solutions.UK tour 2014 BW Yashica   (4 of 24)

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Yashica scans in color

I love shooting film as you probably know by now.
On a recent trip I bought a Yashica TLR camera (124 mat) and have been using this a lot lately during travel, the advantage is that it’s a really “small” camera but shoots 6×6 film so you get an amazing quality, also the lens is incredibly sharp so the results are awesome so to say 🙂

 

Today I show you some of the color film I shot during the UK tour.
I did all the developing at home, after a night of drying the photos are scanned with a Reflecta MF5000 with Silverfast software. Especially the software with which you scan is incredibly important because in essence that’s your “raw developer” but it does much more, and I found Silverfast to be superior to other solutions.

Tour UK 2014 kleur (6 of 37)

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Aimed light

TIP: Look at the old lighting styles



Now a days we have all this gear that makes our life easier, but does it…. sometimes I get the idea that it also confuses people and I mean REALLY confuses people.



Often I get mails asking me what the settings were for my camera if someone likes a shot, well….. sorry to burst that bubble but actually the settings are pretty irrelevant…. you choose the aperture for the depth of field you want to see and this is also highly depended on the lens you’re using and the camera you’re holding of course, and the shutter speed for the studio… well that really doesn’t matter as long as you cut the ambient light and stay below the Xsync, so most of the times it’s 1/125. 


What I mostly tell people during my workshops is that they should look for the light, don’t be overwhelmed with questions about gear, often I think people hide the fact that they are not able to recreate something to the fact that they don’t have the gear to do it. Trust me compared to what we have today, in the old days they had a lot less.


Take for example a technique I call “Aimed light”.
With this technique I create something pretty dark with backlighting and use a single light source aimed at the models face, someone has to keep following that face, because it’s a really tight light source, or the model has to stay in one place.


This way you can create something that always reminds me of a modern twist to the film noir lighting, and yeah I know it’s completely different but it is where I took my inspiration from.


If you look at this example shot you actually see a 2 light setup, one Elinchrom beauty dish with grid from the back and one Elinchrom Snoot from the front, that’s it. Nothing complicated, now add a cool model, a strong color and there you go….. no need to worry about gear, this would look the same with a Canon 10D, a Nikon D4s or a Sony A7r (this was shot with a Medium format camera btw :D)


So next time, don’t think that you can’t do something because you don’t have the gear, dissect the image and recreate it, lighting isn’t hard (as soon as you understand it) but creating a fitting mood and working with the model and styling that’s pretty important 😀


Have fun.

Marie Mei 30 2014 (66 of 119)-Edit

Some images from Sharon

Today some images from Sharon I shot during a workshop small flash.
Sharon Mei 31 2014  (4 of 101)-EditThis image was shot with just the bare strobe, nothing more.
I love the look of the shadow on the background, a lot of people are afraid of shadows but for me they create the mood and let’s be honest without shadows there is no three dimensionality 😀

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