Tag Archive for: tip

Tip : Expression really can make a difference

/in , /by

I’ve said it several times on the blog and online, but expression can really make or break a shot.
When I do portfolio reviews in fact most of the shots I see are well lit, have good styling, have a great location but…. it’s often the expression that kills the shot, I sometimes even think “was she waiting for the bus?” yes it can be that bad 😀

During the shoot always push your models for that real cool expression, the look where they go “WOW, SLAMBAM THERE I AM” well you know what I mean. I sometimes tell the more “shy” models that 80% of the expression is blown away by the strobes so they really have to push it over the top, and this often helps.

No most of the time the models will respond a bit surprised when they see a real expressive shots, some will love it and you are on a rollercoaster from there one, and some will start to doubt themselves, so in my experience don’t ask the model “what do you think?” but just TELL her/him “WOW look at this, THIS is amazing, your rock girl/man” you will quickly see that this last line actually works wonders.

Now when I do my testshoots the first thing I try to figure out is if the model is expressive, I’ll run him/her through different expressions and coach a lot less than I normally do (I’m a real talker during the shoot) because I know that if they do fine without coaching they will rock with.

Some models really surprise me during their testshoots and those are the models you often also see a lot during the workshops I teach :D, one of them is actually Poeka, and today some expression shots we did with Poeka during a recent small flash workshop.

 

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Poeka May 28 2016 0335 Natural looking pop

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Poeka May 28 2016 0313

 

Tip : should I actually see the eyes?

/in , /by

When you work with a model you often hear…. “it’s all in the eyes”
And although I often agree with this I also strongly believe that sometimes a pose can be SO much more powerful when you don’t see they eyes, in fact think about so many horror, SF movies or comics when you cover up someones eyes the attention of the viewer immediately goes to the pose and the expression/gesture in that pose.

Take for example these shots I did during a recent Cosplay shoot, as you can see you hardly see the eyes in two of these shots, and to be honest the less I see the eyes the more powerful the shot becomes…. of course I shot it with the intend to let the pose do the “talking” but when you have a model that can show a very powerful pose it’s often much cooler and more threatening/moody to just leave the eyes out.

In the first shot I went for the motion and action.
The second shot only shows a “hint” of the eyes and with the third one it’s all about the pose.
So the next shoot you do… try to do something with(out) the eyes 😀

Cosplay May 29 2016 32612

Cosplay May 29 2016 32617

Tip : Strong backlighting

/in , , /by

In the 70’s they knew….
Using strong backlighting can be cool, it creates cool lens flares and it really spices up a shot, I won’t say that after the 70’s the photography went south and flat but in all honesty I sometimes am stunned by the questions I get during workshops about lens flare and backlighting, so I thought it would be cool to write a small blogpost about them.

Whenever I post an image with a strong backlight people ask me for the filter I used?
Now don’t get me wrong I do use filters… I love DxO filmpack and Alien Skin Exposure for tinting my images and I use a LOT of MacPhun intensify to spice up the pop of my images, but the lens flares are in 99% of the cases 100% real.

The shot on top we shot during last weeks workshop with iris and is just a strobe right behind our model without any modifier.
If you meter in front of the model (in this case pointing towards the camera) the exposure on her face will be correct, in fact it’s the scatter light from the studio lighting her face. This is also the cool thing about using an incident light meter (A sekonic in my case), if you hold it in front of the area you want correctly exposed you will get a proper exposure. Now it’s up to you to determine the look you want. In this case I only used one light so it COULD be that the backlight is way too strong, you can than do a few things. You can feather the light (turn it away from the model), or move it to the side of the model so not all light is hitting her (when using a reflector), or (when using a bare strobe) move it further back, or use a reflector in the front, all these techniques will do one thing, lower the contrast between the backlighting and front light.

In essence it looks like a very easy setup, but if you just throw in your lighting you will probably fail, or need a lot of Ps work, so make sure to meter correctly.
If you want to learn techniques about metering, check out our video on the light meter via Video downloads

When you want to do these kind of shots make sure to practice a lot with a mannequin or doll before doing it live with a model.

Some more samples where I used strong(er) backlighting from the sun and strobes.

 

Want more in-depth tips and techniques?
Check out my book “Mastering the model shoot” or get one of my instructional videos via Direct video downloads

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Nadine Maart 2016 Imaging days Brussel Sony RETOUCH 0002

Nadine Professional Imaging - 64 March 14, 2016

 

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KelbyOne Day 3 Setup 2 82 - April 29 2015

Nadine Cannenburch 43 - September 06, 2015

Nadine Cannenburch 11 - September 06, 2015

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Tip : Hiding backgrounds

/in , /by

While working on location you will sometimes find awesome backgrounds, and sometimes…. well less interesting (and that’s putting it mildly).
Now not in all locations it’s possible to use smoke or change the background, for example for the simple reason everything else is cool and interesting. So how do we solve this.

A very simple trick (and easy to do) is to use a very strong backlight, mimicking the sun, a window… or just a very strong backlight (whatever you want). This way we overpower the background and fill it with light but also “draw” more detail in (in this case) the staircase leading up to the light.

Setting this light up can be tricky, make sure you feather it so you don’t blow out detail, and if that’s not possible, maybe aim it more up so it blows out the ceiling but not the rest, and just crop that part of in your composition, it isn’t a matter of just “throwing” a light source somewhere and blast it with light, it does take some planning. But when it works it actually never really disappointed me.

 

For much more tips, techniques etc. check out my book “Mastering the model shoot” or our instructional videos (also available via this site).