Frank Doorhof

What you can do with some simple lights

January 16, 2016/in blog, Visions and technique/by Frank Doorhof

I think one of the problems that a lot of photographers encounter is being creative and most of all being creative with light. So the coming days some tips about what you can do with fairly simple lights.

Let’s for today look at the light snake (I hope that’s the correct term).
We all know these lights, especially around christmas they are used a lot, so actually now is a great way to get them cheap. Do make sure you get the ones that are pretty bright because if you are gonna mix them with strobes you want to have the most brightness possible.

In this shot with Poeka we used the snake to light the model which is actually lying on the floor on a plastic mirror. The main advantage of the plastic mirrors is that they not only unbreakable but they als don’t have that nasty double reflection a lot of thicker mirrors can have.

Doing a shot like this is not easy, but it’s also not that hard.
You have to make sure you use the lowest possible output from your strobes, this is where the Elinchrom ELCs really come in handy because they can go really low. The reason for this is that the output from the light snake is not incredibly bright so you will need a slower shutter speed anyway, but also the widest possible aperture to make sure the lights from the snake do appear.

One simple rule to remember is :
Aperture controls the flash appearance in the shot
Shutter speed controls the ambient light in the shot
Normally we would of course make sure that the aperture is metered and is fixed, otherwise the model would be under or overexposed, the light snake however (or any other ambient light source) we can let appear brighter, or dimmer in the shot by adjust the shutter speed, which has no effect on the strobe because the strobe is a pulse and not a constant light source.

So in a shot like this it would make sense to try to get the aperture to f2.8 and use the shutter speed to “taste”.
And this is the big advantage of digital photography, we have a huge “free” digital polaroid on the back of the camera, or in my case on a big screen tv in the studio, so we can really fine tune this, imaging how the “old” photographers had to do this using polaroids and meters to get the perfect results, and they did 😀
As soon as we had the result we liked we added an extra strobe in the back with a red gel, but this looked very basic, so a little bit of smoke was added for atmosphere. Now remember that smoke acts like a diffuser and reflector at the same time, so be very careful to where you point your lights, especially when you use light pointing towards the smoke, make the beam as narrow as possible, that’s why I actually used a small snoot with grid to light the models face.

If you balance everything nicely you don’t need any photoshop after the shot, if you later decide you DO want the light snake a bit more bright there is however a very easy solution, just use the dodge tool in Photoshop and slightly move it over the light snake and you will see that the lights actually become brighter, don’t over do this however. (Dodge tool settings are of course on HighLights).

Next week we are going to up the ante a little bit and include some more smoke and styling…..

So next time you think about what to do…. shop for some christmas lights and shoot your idea and show it to me via our facebook group called masteringthemodelshoot. If you like these kind of tips check out my book “Mastering the model shoot” or our instructional videos.

Small spaces are limiting? … nah

January 7, 2016/in Visions and technique/by Frank Doorhof

One of the most heard excuses is “my space is too small for a good shot”.
Well you might not be able to shoot a model in front of a white seamless, or fit in a whole family, or make a model jump (although that could be funny… for the photographer, not the model,….. nah don’t do it), but in essence EVERY location has potential as long as you use it to the max.

In this case we used a small staircase that is located at the back end of our studio and leads up to the “stage”. Our building is actually and old “church” and this was where the preacher was standing, it’s a tight space but for me it’s always fun to shoot there.

As you can see in the following shots I used some smoke to give the scene a bit more of an edge, but I also used my lighting to the max by moving around my model. Now always remember that smoke acts as both a diffuser and reflector so the more smoke you get… well let me put it this way, it’s always different. Also remember that as soon as the smoke gets in between the model and the front light source “all bets are off” smoke will start to act as a reflector and it will be one big white out.

We used one Elinchrom beauty dish with grid from the front and one gridded (and later open) reflector from the back with a blue gel.
Styling and model : Nadine

For the next one I left in a bit more red.

But you don’t always have to use the same pose of course…..
Why not shoot one from the back for example.

And while you’re at it. Why not move around your model and get a completely different look?

As you can see with the same light setup and the same very tight space you can create something really cool… just think outside the box… or in these kind of cases probably inside the box 😀

Good luck.

Tip on using colored lights

December 30, 2015/in blog, Visions and technique/by Frank Doorhof

You have probably seen them in kits… color gels.
Most used are the so called CTO gels which can be used to correct colorcasts for example when mixing strobes and tungsten. However there are also the “special effects” gels, for example bright red, green and blue (and many others).

Now when I started out using these some years ago I used them on my black background to give it some color and this is probably how most use them. Later I used them (a lot) when working with smoke for that real “live concert” feeling. However they can also give some great results when you use them as accent lights, which we did during the last glamour workshop of 2015 with Jade.

Today some of the results and some more tips.

As you can see I did not just use them as accent lights but also to light the floor.
The main light in these shots is an Elinchrom snoot aimed at the face of the model and the rest of the lighting is all from the colored spots from the back (gridded reflector with gels).

If you start doing this, make sure to not overpower your strobes because in that case the nice tints will be replaced by blowout white areas and only sides with the original color, you can better feather the light slightly away from the model and use the light that way, the benefits from this technique is that you can actually get some funky lens flare if you want but most of all the light fall off is much smoother on the wall, ceiling, model or floor.

If you like these kind of tips make sure to check out my book “Mastering the model shoot” or one of our instructional videos (you can order them from the menu on the left).

Tip on using your area

December 9, 2015/in blog, Visions and technique/by Frank Doorhof

This time a small tip on the use of… a staircase.

When we got our studio there was this huge staircase in the middle of the studio so that had to go, for months we didn’t have any other option to reach the upper floor than by using a fold-up stair which was ok because the upper floor wasn’t used except for storage and I didn’t want to waste any floorspace by adding another staircase.

When our business expanded (this was before the new studio) we really needed to start using that upper floor and there had to be a staircase, so we planned one in the back of the studio, very steep and as small as possible, because this would be ugly and a waste of space right….?

In the end however we used that staircase more than almost any other set in the studio, when you think about it there are so many ways to incorporate a staircase in your set, and in the end we even made a whole set around the staircase.

This is the problem with most photographers I speak too, we sometimes just don’t see the options right in front of us due to a certain mindset, I didn’t want the staircase so the staircase was bad…. however when it was there I started to see the opportunities and used it a lot you might even say that if I knew that before I would have build it differently.

Anyway, the tip for today is very simple.
Try to look at everything with “photographers-eyes” try to see opportunities for shoots and don’t think “that’s never gonna work” somehow when you think that…. well it indeed will never work.

In essence I think there is no space where it’s impossible to create some “magic”. Although some are harder or let me put it this way.. easier 😀
Good luck and show me the images you shot in places where you thought “this will never work”.

For much more in depth tips and techniques check out my book “Mastering the modelshoot” or our instructional videos which you can find on this site under the video downloads.

Tag Archive for: tip

What you can do with some simple lights

Like this:

Small spaces are limiting? … nah

Like this:

Tip on using colored lights

Like this:

Tip on using your area

Like this:

Snel naar

Contact