We all travel while traveling, right?
Often however I see photographers traveling with their camera in the bag just hanging in their seats waiting to arrive at the location, however there are often many cool options to shoot while traveling.
Today some images I shot on the ferry from the mainland UK to the Isle of Wight.
It’s only an one hour commute but there is a lot to shoot and the time flies when you’re shooting 😀
In the old times we choose the filmrol for the look we wanted, now a days everything is of course digital and although I still love to shoot with film my workflow is 99% digital. I do however always say that “In my workflow I’m a 99% digital photographer, however in my heart I’m a 100% analogue photographer”, now why do I tell you this today?
When I look at my digital files I always feel something’s missing.
They are not bad, or looking weird, but they are just a bit “too” perfect, I know it sounds weird from a guy teaching to use the color checker and light meter however do realize that these tools are just to get the basis right, from this basis I always build up to the final look.
ALL the images you see from me are in one or another form tinted.
The last few years I’ve been mainly using the awesome DxO filmpack for this but since the release of Alien Skin Exposure X I have to be honest I’m more and more switching “back” to Alien skin, the X release is just really nice. If you already have filmpack… don’t upgrade (unless you want to) but if you don’t have any tinting plugin yet make sure to check out Alien Skin Exposure X (follow this link for a cool discount).
But what does tinting do?
To show you this and also to let you see my thought process I included 4 images from a session we did with Nadine in 4 different looks, it’s the same image, the only thing I changed are the colors, judge for yourself which one you like the best 😀
As you can see 4 totally different looks with different “feelings”.
I would normally just go through some presets I created and sometimes it just fits, but there is more….
If you shoot a commercial series it’s very important to keep the look constant, in other words use the same preset for all your images, now you also understand why it’s important to keep that basis correct, because if the basis is the same/correct the preset will give you the same results.
To make sure you select the right preset I would advise to try out your favorite preset on a few images and if they look awesome that’s the preset to use, however very often a really cool preset can look awesome on Photo 1 but terrible on Photo 2, often you will quickly see what the “problem” is, it’s better to select a different preset than that fits great for all images.
For commercial shoots I will also normally show a few images in a black and white conversion I really like, this way the client can always choose and making sure the clients gets a lot to choose from means that they will order more prints, but you will actually have a bigger chance they will hire you again because you give them a lot to choose from.
So the next time you’re done with your image…. and you think it’s perfect….. run it through a tinting plugin and I’m sure you will be very surprised 😀
We all know that photography is taking pictures…. However is it just that or is there more….
Well when a blogpost starts like this there is of course more, right…
During our travels we often also visit landmarks and to be honest I always find these challenging, not to shoot them but to create something that hasn’t been done before, because let’s be honest everything has been done once or twice at least. As soon you realize that one burden is actually lifted… pff we don’t have to be unique…. but at least lets try to do it slightly different.
The easiest shot is always from the what I call “Kodak point”, you can find these at some sights and the only thing you have to do is point your camera in the “general” direction and shoot, and in all honestly you’ll end up with a good shot of the landmark…. but if you try to move around, zoom in, shoot from a very low or very high angle, shoot it with an extreme wide-angle or even fish eye you will actually get something totally different. You could even use your “selfie-stick” to get some stunning shots that you would normally not get (so we finally found a good use for that stick).
In the end it’s all about one thing…
As a photographer it’s not enough to just see the landmark, treat like you would treat a model…. and ok it doesn’t listen and you can’t pose it, but you can still wait for the light, change your own position, zoom in to show details or leading lines, add something in the frame to make it funny, or weird… when you think about it the options are limitless.
Even from the “kodak point”.
Today some more images with the light snake like we discussed in the previous blogpost.
This time we have added a small set and did a bit more with the styling of the model.
These images were shot during a workshop about smoke and props, in this workshop we show the attendees on how to control smoke, and believe it or not it’s almost a science, but also on how to work with very simple and budget friendly props to create something cool.
One of things I always try to teach is that you’re much stronger if you’re listing to your team or anyone in the room. There is a saying “you’re as strong as the weakest link” and that might be so for certain areas but I strongly believe that if you combine everything together even the weakest link adds to the total amount.
What I see a lot on sets is that the photographer takes control…(read this with a low voice) it’s HIS set and everyone should listen, if someone has input HE will determine if it’s right…. (switch back to normal voice) now that might work for some people, or at least they think, in reality they are missing out a lot.
During workshops and shoots I always listen to everyone, I want all the input I can get, some ideas I will not investigate further because I simply know they are not fitting the shot I want/need but most of the time you will find that if you create the atmosphere in which people DARE to have input your session will FLY and your creativity will blossom.
In this set I just started simple and together with the students we started to think about what we could do with the light-snake, and see what happened.
as you can see it’s just a very simple change of the light snake and it actually changes the whole shot, the light snake goes from a position in the back where you could actually ask “why” to a major role into the shot. Now this was shot during a workshop so my time is always limited to shoot but imaging going further with this and connecting the back part for example to the mask….. just thinking out loud 😀
So next time you shoot, make sure to listen to your team and value their input, they REALLY can make you better, often people compliment me with the diversity of my portfolio, and I always honestly tell them that it’s because I always work with very creative people and value their input, this way you can always improve and change, even if you work with a steady team there is always a new element like an internet, an attendee or even just a simple visitor that can add to your shots..
Good luck.
If you like tips like this and want even more check out my book “Mastering the model shoot” or get one of our instructional videos from this site.
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