What happens when you change it to Black and White?

May 9, 2024/in blog, Visions and technique/by Frank Doorhof

What happens if you change your photo to Black and White?

The choice between black and white, or color can be tricky.
For me personally I sometimes shoot something with the intent to make it black and white. But then when I see the results I often keep it in color, because I just love the way it looks. And what happens if you change your photo to Black and White?

Sometimes you might shoot something that is very colorful and you don’t even think about black and white. That’s why I post this today. Luckily with digital, we can of course do both 😀

The horror clown is back!

Well she was here just 2 days ago, so she was not really gone 😀
But as you could have seen in the previous blog post about the horror clown, the color was pretty colorful. So this is the kind of set where you might not immediately think about a black-and-white conversion, but…. think about this.

Black and white doesn’t just mean we take out the color.

In fact, you can still manipulate the colors via the H(S)L adjustments in Lightroom. A bit like in the old days photographers did with filters. We can now manipulate images to our hearts’ content in our RAW convertor.

The idea of black and white in this setting is not to take out color but to inject a lot of mood and make the images more creepy. And that’s the cool thing about black and white. I sometimes make the joke

“if you mess up a shot, add a lot of contrast and noise, make it black and white, and voila instant art”

It sounds weird, but it’s really true.
If we look at a color image that is just slightly out of focus or has a shadow that’s not 100% correct in color we immediately see this as “bad”. But make it black and white and we see it as mood, or we don’t even notice it. Now that doesn’t mean that all my images that are black and white are “bad” images of course. But some street photography images have been “saved” that way in the past 😀

But let’s first take a look at the original blog post about the horror clown.
Now that you have seen the color versions, let’s go to black and white.

As you can see the images get a totally different vibe and look.
For me even more creepy than the color versions.

Learning all about lighting in our workshops

For me teaching the workshops is not all about lighting.
Personally, I think there is a lot more than just lighting or a cool/fitting backdrop.
A good photo is a cooperation between the model and the photographer. So coaching and making a model feel at ease is vital. But after that, the real creativity comes into play, and during the workshops, I try to focus at least 80% on creativity.

This can be with lighting, but also with the storytelling part.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, working in “super creativity” model can enhance your skills way above the level you would achieve if you only shoot what you are hired for. Plus if you can shoot images that your client is not used from you it could very well be that he/she asks for something a bit more creative.

Visit www.frankdoorhof.com and www.photography-workshops.eu for the workshops in Dutch and English.

TIP on backgrounds

April 30, 2016/1 Comment/in blog/by Frank Doorhof

When I started out with model photography I used a lot of seamless backgrounds, and I think most of you do.
However the more I shot the more I grew bored with these backgrounds and I started using the studio walls and more and more and I was drawn to location work. Of course it’s not possible to work on great locations all the time, and let’s be realistic…. the background does have to have something interesting, being it structure, rawness (is that a word?), edginess (love that word, I always use it when I don’t know something else) and…. well you get the general idea, walls can be cool if they are cool.

At one point it dawned to me that if I couldn’t go to locations all the time why not get the locations in our studio, if you go through my portfolio you can actually see that a lot of my work is using models pretty much straight up or in front of walls. In our studio we actually painted all the walls in different themes and looks going from nice and dark to totally distressed with wallpaper hanging down and broken plaster. Sometimes people will actually comment on these walls and ask me when I’m gonna do some fixing up… until I tell them that those are sets and their response is “oh cool, I need that”… actually at that time I already earned my money for the workshop because in my opinion the biggest problem a lot of photographers struggle with is “seeing possibilities”. So if you see an old broken down wall don’t see it as something that has to go but see it as an photo oppertunity.

Our studio is pretty big and there is no wall in the studio that we can’t use as a backdrop, I always am stunned when I visit studios that are HUGE but have all the same color walls, it just doesn’t make sense for me, of course a shooting area for cars has to be one color, but there are also so many other walls, areas etc. that you can use and that are often left untouched, for me the studio is a working space and not an office (heck even my office has different themes, I hate plain walls I guess).

So what if you can’t do your walls like we can?
In essence all walls can be covered with wallpaper right?
So find some interesting wall paper like for example this :

If you are not allowed to do this on the walls, make “small” (2.50×2.50 mtrs) panels and cover them.
But you can also paint those panels, in this case one of our interns did a tremendous job I think, and as you can see it REALLY spices things up, the image in front of it is already cool but the walls…. well they complete it, and it really also helps to enhance the styling.

Indeed all the structure and blues you see is in the wall, we used a little bit of smoke to spice the set up, but the wall in combination with nadine her awesome styling makes the image complete.

But a lot more can be done.
Here are some examples of our walls in action 😀

Now if you don’t have the options for panels, or wallpaper or…. there is always another option.
Lastolite is a brand you probably know right?
They have some amazing foldable backgrounds with great prints, and the fun thing is… they don’t take up any space and they look great in a photoshoot. I always have some with me when I teach on location (just in case).

Here are some samples from the Lastolites.

Now if you think these are too expensive (man you are hard to convince :D)
You can always use a backdrop system and mount some plastic to it and play with that.

Or use some curtains

So the next time you grab your seamless…. try to do something more creative and start using the walls, areas of your studio etc.
OR….. well you also use seamless of course.

If you want more in depth tips and tricks check out my book “Mastering the model shoot” it’s not just on models but also has extensive parts on styling, your studio etc.
Also check out my instructional videos via this website (see the left menu), and check out my videos on KelbyOne where you can also find one on building your own studio.

Using backlights in street photography

September 17, 2014/1 Comment/in blog, Visions and technique/by Frank Doorhof

One of the things a lot of people ask me is “how to get instant WOW effects in street photography”
My first answer is always “there is no this will always work solution”.

You will always have to look for the story, the setting etc. but one of the things that will indeed come close to a certain WOW effect (at least for me) is using backlights. During our trip in New York I shot these shots just before sunset.

Going from ok tot WOW

August 21, 2014/in blog, Visions and technique/by Frank Doorhof

One of the most important things for me is story telling.
Without a little bit of story telling a shot is not 100% done for me.
Now story telling can be in a good expression, but also in something more extreme.
In yesterdays blogpost I showed a huge change in changing angles, but as you can see the image gets way more interesting when we add a small prop…. in this case an old gas mask, and the pose helps a lot of course.

Enka workshops Augustus 15 2014 144

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