beautiful location poor lighting

I planned a nice outdoor shoot with the beautiful Cato, But as happens so often we had to change plans the very last minute. The weather was bad but luckily for us Cato's mother could get us into 'De Vooruit' in Gent.

We were allowed to shoot in the old theater. It's probably the most beautiful theater of Belgium. But unfortunatly it is realy poorly lit. ISO 3200 1/30s f2.0. Now I don't have a zillion strobes in my backpack ... should I have?

Perhaps, if I would have known in advance, I could have taken some more strobes, umbrellas and triggers with me. But frankly ... I'm not into strobisme. So I went for the safety shots and ended up with these shots, not quite what Cato was expecting, but hey I'm still learning and one of these days all will fall in place.

Shooting models is like a box of chocolates

A few days ago I saw this post on one of the photographer blogs I am following. Frank Doorhof is one of those photographers you simply have to admire, if not for his work then certainly for what he already has achieved. I know by now that I will never even be able to stand in his shadow.

Having said that I was a bit disappointed by his post. I do agree on everything he says, yes you need a great model and yes a good MUA does wonders and having a stylist on site can make the difference between an ok shot and a brilliant shot. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of clarity on who is responsible for the shoot. He probably just forgot to mention it, but … the photographer is the director, he is responsible he has to have a vision, he has a clear view on what he wants to create, he is in the lead. I am sure Frank agrees and that he is in the lead when shooting.

Now is this the way I do it? Heck no, that’s just too much effort, as an amateur you are already happy that someone shows up, you’ve already spend a considerable amount of money on equipment and you are getting /expecting nothing in return. Nothing?? Well let’s be honest you are always hoping to spend a nice day surrounded by nice people which hopefully will result in some nice shots. But other than that, you are not expecting anything, so spending even more money would be … not acceptable (spouse pressure)

The way I approach shoots is definitely not the best way, but it is the only possible way for me. I don’t expect anything, I don’t ask for anything, I don’t plan anything. I just go with the flow, I work with what is available. I am heavily dependent on what the model gives me (styling and attitude) and what the MUA, if present, comes up with. Shooting models is like a box of chocolates, I never know what I am going to get. Sometimes I get lucky and end up with one of these delicious white chocolates with a nut inside and sometimes I don’t.

If you are planning to make a living out of it, follow the advice Frank gives you. If you are doing this just for fun, you are probably better of spending the money on equipment and a cold Duvel at shoot endings.

To PS or not to PS

For years I refused to use photoshop as a creative tool. The only feature I ever touched was the healing brush to remove some blemishes. I really believed that a photo had to made the moment you pushed the shutter button. To be honest I still believe that this is the way it ought to be.

But … at a given moment I started to realize that I was simply not going to be able to reach the desired level of photographs just by solving problems at run time. Because of lack of the right gear, the lack of a Tyra Banks clone, the lack of proper styling and location and most importantly the lack of knowledge. So I sold my soul to photoshop. I ‘ve been picking up some great techniques in photoshop but still have a long way to go.

I still believe however that I am only making minor adaptations in photoshop but sometimes they can make a world of difference. The images below show the result of a 5 minute effort. It is far from perfect I know but it does make a difference.
The moment I started using photoshop was the moment I started to get likes on facebook. Everyone knows that there is no better measure than facebook likes LOL

Soft Whitney

After following a Photoshop workshop last year I thought I had discovered the Holy Grail. A very simple workflow was presented, which can be used on every photo. The workflow is basically meant to support fashion / beauty shots. Adding contrast, enhancing shades and high lights and altering the general look and feel (color). Simple enough, having said that, I still have to practice a lot to get the technique into my fingers. But I do understand the principles so in the end it boils down to practice, practice, practice.

I have been using this workflow quite extensively and with great satisfaction. And most of the time I get the result I was looking for. As mentioned before it is a workflow which is best suited for fashion and beauty. Problem is that I don’t do either one of them, I don’t know how my style would be best described, no-one ever asked so I did not bother to think about it. If someone would ask, I’d probably have to say … FUN, yep that’s it, FUN would be my style. I know you don’t see a lot of FUN in my pictures but believe me it is a lot of FUN shooting these photos.

Enough with the small talk. What I wanted to tell you, not every picture needs to be a beauty / fashion shot with high contrasts and over saturated colors. You sometimes want to create a soft look with almost no contrast and color. To achieve this I had to drop my beloved workflow and explore some different roads.

No longer afraid of all the different sliders in Lightroom, I had a shot at it. In the end I came up with something I liked, nice thing about it, I did not have to go into Photoshop to do additional post processing. To get the soft look of the included pictures I just pulled a couple of sliders down. The blacks down to 0 or 1, contrast down to 0 to 10, increase the fill light if necessary, slide down the clarity -10 will do and a slight desaturation. And you are done. Dead easy.



As always I was pretty pleased with the result until I had a second look at it. This method ain’t final yet, it will need a lot of tweeking but for now I’ll have to do with it.



The main lesson: don’t be afraid of the sliders, it took me a couple of years to get over my sliderphobia but now I am totally cured. A complete new world is opening up to me.

Whitney - nd filter

The DOF helping hand. As we all know there are three parameters which determine the Depth Of Field.

Aperture
Distance to subject
focal distance

When working with models in studio you are sometimes limited in your options:

You can't shoot with full aperture, because your light source is to bright and your sync speed limits your shutterspeed, and yes you want to keep your light as close to your model as possible.
You can't sneek up on her because of lens distortion or minimal focus distance (although I love doing this, love those big noses).
using a longer lens is a good starting point, but it is just not enough

Your main problem is the amount of light coming out of your studio flashes, using nd fiters can help you out. There are nd filters which you can put in front of your flash or nd filters you can put on your lens. I chose the latter. By using the nd filter I was able to open up my aperture, delivering me a nice DOF.

I only took a couple of test shots, did not want to waste to much time on it, but was pretty pleased with the result. Next time I'll spend some more time experimenting with the nd filter.



Thank you Whitney to let me have a shot on this setup, I know you had to have a lot of patience with me, but hopefully you will be pleased with the result, a lot of pictures to follow.

puppet warp

Sometimes you as a photographer get it all wrong. A beautifull model all of a sudden does not look that beautifull anymore. It's not the fault of the model, it's yours, you made her look fat. watch the poses and watch the light and you'll probably end up with a nice picture.

But when you get it all wrong, fix it. I used to go into photoshop and start using the liquify tool, although it is a great tool, it does sometimes to much. It does not only fix the problematic part it also mess's up body parts or props which are closeby.

During one of my evening scrolls over the internet I found this interesting tool which gives you much more control when modifying body parts. It is called puppet warp. Since I can't show you, I 'll describe it 'steno' style.

Use the pen tool to make a rough selection around the problematic part (It's ok to make a large selection)
After finishing the path, make it into a selection (CTRL - ENTER)
Make a copy in a new layer of the selection (CTRL - SHIFT - C and CTRL - V )
Convert the new layer into a smart object.
Make a puppet warp of the smart object(Edit -> puppet warp)
Add anker points - click on the grid (anker points are points which will not move when dragging the grid)
Start dragging the grid points and watch what happens.

It takes some playing around with the tool, before you get the hang of it. But once you do, you will never go back to liquify again. Have fun.

Places

One of the biggest challenges when photographing outdoors in Belgium is finding a nice location. The second biggest challenge is to remember those locations. Therefore I have decided to keep track of these locations in this little post.

In this way not only I will not forget about them, but you all can profit of the list, if only I had followers :)

Locations:

Brussels:
Botanische tuinen (if you go on a quiet moment, you will be left alone)
Terkameren abdij (nice garden , have not been there don't know if you can get in trouble taking model shots overthere)
Hallerbos (On the outskirts of Brussels, this forest is worthwhile visiting when the hyacints are flourishing, end of april)
Vilvoorde: nieuwe voetgangersbrug over de E19

Antwerp:
MAS (Museum aan de stroom, This modern building offers lots of possibilities, outside, inside and on top of it)
Hangar 26 (when you are shooting at MAS, just look for Hangar 26, the backside of the building offers some interesting shoot oportunities)

Limburg:
C mine genk (Interesting location, because of the glass roof and old mining machines)