Tag Archive for: tip

Close to the background

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Often when using seamless we are almost automatically placing the model far away from the background to create a shadowless shot.
However it can be very dynamic when you place the model very close to the seamless and let her/him start playing with the shadow that is cast, in other words make that shadow part of the shot, but when you also add some aimed light (in this case an Elinchrom 1.00 mtr Deep Octa with grid) and some motion and expression you can have a striking shot.

 

I converted the shot to BW to give a bit more of a rough edge.

Roosmarijn Mei 22 2014 (7 of 155)-Edit

Cover your eyes…..

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Eyes are the mirror to the soul, we all have heard that one.
Sometimes however it can be very interesting to start playing with the concept “should I include the eyes in the shot YES/NO”

 

Today two images from the same session where I experiment with eyes covered and not.
For me personal I have no favorite but as you can see the mood from the 2 images is totally different, try to experiment in your own sessions with this concept and remember that, although we all love to see the eyes in a shot, it’s sometimes also very powerful to intentional hide them.

Roosmarijn Mei 22 2014 (20 of 155)-Edit

Roosmarijn Mei 22 2014 (35 of 155)-Edit

Just between two walls

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“My studio is not big enough”
“I can’t shoot full bodies because….”

 

Well we all heard the excuses, or maybe even used them ourselves.
In reality however it’s often much less dramatic than one might think, often it’s just a matter of being creative with the area you have available, don’t just think about shooting full bodies (or whatever) against seamless where you have to have the model 2-3 mtrs from the background (although close to the seamless can be very interesting as I will show in another blog post), but think about what you can do with small spaces, and trust me, often the smaller the space the more interesting it can get.

 

In these shots I shot the model in between two walls in our studio, it’s just a small area where we normally walk on the stage, it’s tight and not really an area where you would think you would shoot, but when we prepared the studio with walls I did let the painters paint the walls because I thought I saw the potential… 😀 in the end it indeed is one of my favorite spots.

 

Roosmarijn Mei 22 2014 (57 of 155)-Edit-Edit

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Aimed light

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One of the most difficult things to do is really aiming your light.
In a lot of workshops you will see big soft boxes aimed at the model from a moderate distance, this is of course very understandable for the simple reason that in fact you really can’t go wrong…. however the resulting image is often “a bit flat” and not that interesting lighting wise.

 

A next step is using smaller light sources like striplights or for example a beauty dish with grid.
For example in this shot I used a small striplight.

Roosmarijn Mei 22 2014 (73 of 155)-Edit

It can get way more interesting however when we start lighting our model from the back and creating a very dark front. Now normally one would let the model look upward to catch some light, but often that doesn’t really result in the image you want, a model looking towards the camera always has a little bit more….. connection, especially with glamour.

 

In the next shot I used a beauty dish from the back and lit the models face with a very small light source, in this case a snoot with grid.

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