Tag Archive for: Sony

Working on location with strobes and making something boring interesting

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From the workshop on location in Emmeloord

During the workshop “on location in Emmeloord” we scout for locations that look not so interesting but the challenge is to create some cool images anyway. This is a great training exercise because let’s be honest in most cases working on location is not as superb as often hoped for, but we are still expected to deliver awesome images.

For me there are a few different things I use to make a location look more interesting.

The first is of course the location itself, I try to find angles or other details (small or large) that I can use, or that I don’t want in the shot.
In this location we loved the onion crates, they blocked off the sunlight for a large part, which is always handy when working in the bright sun. The less direct sunlight on the model the better in this case.

After I have something in my mind for the general location I’m going to use in the set it’s of course time for the lighting.
In this case I’m using the Geekoto strobes aimed at our model Nadine from the side to create a nice light patten on the crates. Although this was nice we wanted something more, so I added a blue gel to the set. But as you can see in the video and images we started with a more flat lighting setup.

Of course we can talk about, but often a video is much better, so here we go 😀

And also lets take a look at the images separately

Also want to visit a workshop?

Today I showed you the results from one of the sets we did during the workshop outside with Geekoto strobes “on location in Emmeloord” with Nadine.
During the workshops I always try to use 3-4 different setups explaining different techniques and of course it’s a great way to get a good addition to your portfolio.

If you think “that’s for me”
Than visit photography-workshops.eu for the Dutch workshops.
But if you are not living in the Netherlands or don’t speak Dutch we also have other options.
If you let is know 2 weeks in advance I can teach the workshop you want to visit in English.
Or if you can’t travel to our studio we also now offer the option to get a full 1:1 experience with 5 different camera angles, lightroom/Photoshop view and a talkback channel, you also get all the raw files and retouched results from the workshop. Visit our online workshops page for more info.

Adding something really special to a photoshoot with a gobo projector

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I love my Westcott gobo projector

I love the old fashioned photography, think about photographers like George Hurrell or for example the world famous Harcourt studios.
In the 30’s and 40’s you often saw harsh light combined with hard shadows, this can be for example a plant, branches, chair, ladder or whatever you want to project on the background.

Quick tip.
If you want really hard shadows, make sure your lightsource is far away from the object that will cast the shadow, and the object is as close to the background as possible. The further you move the light away the harder the edge transfer (shadow)

But although those shadows are nice I love to go one step further, and this is where a gobo projector comes in.
As mentioned I’m using the Westcott Lindsay Adler version, but in essence they all work the same.
You mount the projector to your strobe and you can place different gobo’s (metal discs) between a lens (in my case a Canon mount lens) and the strobe, by focussing the lens you can create a sharper or softer pattern on your subject/set. It’s an awesome light modifier to create stunning images.

You can use the projector on your model to create very sharp areas of light or to light the whole set and use fill in lights for extra detail or mood.
During a recent workshop with Felisa I used the projector exactly for that.

In these images I’m using the projector with a standard gobo with lines on our Geekoto GT400 aimed at Felissa, for the accent light I’m using one Geekoto GT250 with the Rogue Magnetic system and a blue gel. By adding a bit of smoke the blue nicely smeared out over the set.

We build a small set by using 2 of our Clickbackdrops backgrounds.
Of course the fur is fake.

A few tips for the Gobo projector

On the Westcott you can mount lenses with the Canon mount.
The lens that was delivered with my set was for me too long and made it impossible to throw the light over a complete set, it does work great for portraits.
So when you want to start using a gobo projector I would advise to get some extra lenses.
Now this is where you have to be careful.
The projector eats light, so make sure that when you get a lens you get the widest possible aperture you can afford, the nice thing is that you don’t need to get a super high quality lens, you could for example use old M42 lenses with a Canon convertor and make it possible to experiment with different lenses.

One of the things I love about the Westcott version is that you don’t need to use the gobos, but you can also use the blades to get some really striking patterns on your model.

And you can of course combine it with some colors for extra stunning effects.

Want to visit one of our workshops?
visit www.fotografie-workshops.nl for the new agenda.
The workshops are in Dutch, but if you let us know a few weeks in advance we can switch the to English.

On location photoshoots : how to kill the ambient light part I

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Locations are awesome

 

But what if they are not? Well, it’s up to you to make them awesome.
Sounds difficult?
Well, it can be, but with the proper lighting and lighting techniques you can create stunning images in locations that are far from awesome. Killing the ambient light is one of those techniques.

Workshop “On location in Emmeloord”

During this workshop, we scout locations close to our studio that look uninteresting but have the potential to become awesome. This is a great workshop to get more secure when working for clients in locations that are a bit less inspiring (or in other words 50% of the time).

During the workshop, I explain the techniques but also tried to create something different in each location.
For this workshop the model was Nadine, and as you can probably see she’s is pregnant so that was a great option to also shoot some pregnancy shots of course.

Today one of the sets from this workshop.

I’m using our Geekoto strobes on HSS in this video.

 

And, the final results

killing the ambient light

We took this picture during a sunny day and killed the ambient light

killing the ambient light

 

Day2Night

Killing the ambient light is also called Day to Night (Day2Night). Pictures are taken during the daytime. But it looks like it was taken at night. A lot of my students are interested in this technique. And I always try to incorporate such a scene in the workshop outside.

 

In this video I went to Times Square in New York, and I’ll give you some tips to look like you took the pictures at night

Check out another video on location with Nadine ad styling of course 

We also did a workshop outside with a Tesla car and model Lois 

 

How to murder your Husband, a Halloween Frank Doorhof Special

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It’s Halloween so it’s time for horror

When it’s Halloween it’s time for some cool images of course.
We already showed you the video this morning but now it’s time to see those gory photos in full glory.
I hope you enjoy them as much as we did creating them, and trust me this was one of those workshops where the group totally went for it, I can’t wait for you guys to see the images popping up on their timelines 😀

But in this blogpost… well it’s time for my images.

DISCLAIMER
if you are easily offended don’t read the blogpost, it is Halloween so everything is in good fun of course.

Story time

Photography is paining with light, we all know that expression but for me personally it’s also a large part story telling.
You can do this with sets, lighting, expressions, props etc. but also with adding some special effects in Photoshop.

For this story we knew before hand it would rely heavily on using Photoshop and for me also Boris FX (totally love their optics software). That doesn’t mean however that you can just shoot it all against a blue/green screen of course.
For some images we needed smoke, and besides that I always try to shoot my images already in a setting so that I can use them if my Photoshop skills are not what I thought they were 😀

In this case, I think the images turned out pretty well.

So let’s start.

How to murder your husband

Of course we all love our partners, but what if you can’t stand your husband. And after years of hiding your anger one Halloween night it’s enough. You can’t face the truth yourself so you decided to go to the cellar and put on the mask.

“Honey, can you come downstairs please I need some help”
Yeah help you don’t really need right?
She already got something heavy and put on her wedding dress (because you can see the blood better, and it was more dramatic than jeans and a tanktop).

When the husband comes down the stairs he started laughing “What are you wearing, lol you think it’s already Halloween dummy”

“YES IT’S HALLOWEEN”
And that’s the last thing he heard besides the blows hitting his head.

After the fact she looks at the lifeless body and realises something terrible,….. it’s going to stink like crazy so we have to get rid of the body.
Luckily there is a forrest close by, and the drags the body behind her to a place where no-one will ever find him.

After she dug the grave it was time for the “till death do us part, part”
She took of her cheap wedding ring he got at the pawnshop in Vegas and after 13 years still read the name of that other woman you never met.

Closing up the grave she felt liberated, happy but… also a little bit sad. She did ruin a perfectly great wedding dress.

The grave is closed, the ring is gone, the wedding dress is soaked in blood (this will be a huge cleaners bill).
But one thing still has to be done.
One flower for total liberation

This is how the story end… or does it?

 

yes it does for now.
But I still wanted to share one more image from this workshop. It was actually an image to test a setup but I still liked it enough to include it into this post.