portrait

Sanne modelshoot

people, Personal Pictures

Sanne is a model describing herself as a ‘Plus model’, this means, not fitting into the ‘ideal size’ category.

We had a fun shoot last week after someone else cancelled on this superb location. Sanne immediately jumped in to take this opportunity! Please enjoy these pictures. Click for bigger images!




The shoot was shot with 85mm, 135mm and wide angle 17-40 (last image). We had a large reflector and an off camera flash, used trough umbrella. Images were shot at ISO 500 – ISO 800 on Canon 5D II.

struggle for a portrait

people, Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks, Tips and Tricks

Hi,
I’m at number 15, people who have come at my studio to pose for the professions project. All people I have photographed are un-easy with posing, and it has been a challenge to make them feel comfortable enough to get a good portrait and a nice depiction of their professional occupation.
Last I had a directors assistant and I would like to show you a bit of the shoot in evolution. I always ask people to bring something related to their job, and to be creative in what they bring (otherwise everybody brings a computer nowadays). She had brought a small calculator and a cellphone, because she does a lot of pricing calculations and she is on the phone half of her working time.

First of all I do a shot to verify my light setup, a quick close portrait will do to check on the detail in the highlights and the shadows.

First we tried with the calculator and a portable home phone I have here at hand. Phone in left hand, phone in right hand, didn’t work out to my feeling.

Ok then, let’s try only the calculator, maybe we’re going to get somewhere, … duhhhh, nope, nothing ‘directors assistant’ alike.

Maybe when we use only the phone, the pose will be less ‘forced’ and more natural, try putting a hand on your hip, nice, but not so ‘verymuchbusywithalotofthingsatthesametime’. This looks more like a well dressed woman calling her friend.

Now what do you really do in your job, I asked Ellen, …
Well, I’m often occupied with a lot of papers, trying to fix a date for an appointment in my bosses agenda, whilst running from here to there, …
Oh, okay, let’s find you some papers, an agenda, a pen, and hold that calculator and phone while I go find what we need.
I gave her some invoices strolling on my desk (she gave them back after the shoot 🙁 an agenda, a pen, …) and I quickly grabbed my camera.
While she was struggling to get all those things comfortably in her hands, I took a shot, MY SHOT! We did some less panic’y shots for her too, but I had my shot! The directors assistant, getting thrown ten things at the same time to her head, and trying to deal with all of them.

I have no proper background system yet, so I need to do some retouching on the background, painting some areas black, next I do some local adjustments for some extra exposure to the hands, the shadow side of the face, the shadow side of the dress, I add some more exposure to the orange tones and that’s it for my final image.

After that, I took a picture of Ellen and her husband Bart, as a bonus, because I made her work so hard. Thank you Ellen, thank you Bart!

more professions – light setup

people, Personal Pictures, personal tips & tricks, photo gear, Tips and Tricks

And my project on profession portraits goes on.
I have quite some people spontaneously offering to pose for my series of professions. A classical portrait with a – small/not so small – glimpse of the job they do.
Below, you’ll see the library assistant, the plumber, the health coach and the actuaris. For you to find out who’s who, can’t be too hard I guess. – click on the images to view larger if you have difficulties finding out –

for my fellow photography enthusiasts, I’ll include a more detailed light setup, which is actually very simple:

1. I have a black cloth hanging up in the back of the room 3 to 4 meter behind my subject.
2. I have a reportage flash (Canon 580 EXII) in a 70×70 cm softbox from Lastolite on the right of my subject, which is my only light source. It is set at 1/4 +0.7 power and very close to the subject (maybe half a meter). I put it so close because this allows me to lit only my subject, and have the background almost black, thus reducing the post-processing. it is at the subjects head hight, slightly aiming down.
3. I have my large Lastolite tri-grip on the left side, on the ground + my diy reflector on a small stand, I had to use this extra reflector, because otherwise I don’t get enough light on the shadowside, and I recon my own reflector is just a bit more reflective than the trigrip, which is larger but softer.
4. I’m at about 3,5 meters distance from my subject, at about hip-height, to make my subject seem larger and fiercer, more ‘standing out’ I use my 85 mm 1.8 lens, at f8 on a full frame camera, to get a decent sharpness overall.
5. I have different subjects 🙂 They are all uncomfortable with posing, believe me! I ask them to turn their body slightly towards the main light, looking at me. Then we do about 15-25 shots, until I think we have a good shot, representing both the personality and a good pose.

The images are taken in colour, as raw files, and treated in LR afterwards. I use the standard BW settings, but have some minor local corrections with adding or removing exposure. I then remove the unwanted parts in the image (my background is not large enough for this distance, so I need to remove some ceiling that is not black, sometimes I need to move a small part of the reflector on the left.

I hope you like the pictures, if you are willing to pose for me, please give me a sign trough email or by reacting to this post. In return, you’ll get the chosen image in high resolution, free for personal use.
If you have any questions about the setup, ask it.

shoot Esmée

people, Personal Pictures

About 6 weeks ago I was asked by the mama of Esmée if I could do a shoot with her. We had to re-schedule two times, first because Esmée got ill, second because Esmée fell on her lip and got a big blue bruise. Two weeks ago we managed to get Esmée in good shape for her first photoshoot. My youngest model to date, but one of a kind. We worked together for about two hours, and she loved it, mam and dad too 😀

For light setup I mainly worked with available light and my diy reflector panel and later in the evening a Lastolite 70 cm softbox with my Canon EX580 flash. My two preferred lenses for this kind of work are the 85 mm and the 135 mm, all shots done with these two lenses.

please enjoy a small selection of the afternoon. Click images to view larger version.









If you liked these images, you might consider subscribing to my blog 😀

Adinda model – post processing

people, Personal Pictures

Hi,
I have done a short session with model Adinda, and wanted to show you some postprocessing examples of the images that came out.
With the transition to digital photography, digital postprocessing took the role of the earlier darkroom techniques, plus they allow for a lot more creative impact from the photographers side.
The images from Adinda were good, but nothing really special. I took the liberty to experiment in Lightroom, to make them into something more spicey. RAW files let you edit the original exposure data to a great extend, without too much quality loss.
I changed the white balance to a cooler image, with green tinting added in the white balance settings. The exposure went up about 1,5 stops, then I pushed the blacks to keep the contrast. Some minor adjustments to vibrance, contrast and brightness and this is the result.
For comparison, I also show the original files. For you to decide what you like the best.

click for bigger size!

ludwig


Bert Stephani

Interesting Links

Hi,

i found another great resource for aspiring photographers like myself, eager to learn a new trick every day.
Bert Stephani is a Belgian photographer, mainly concentrating on portrait, fashion, model photography.
You can find his site here:

bertstephani

His training web page here:

motivationallight

and I did a search for his youtube videos:

bert stephani on youtube

great inspiration!

Model Sharon – herfst

people, Personal Pictures, Uncategorized

In an attempt to get warm after the interior shoot (posing in lingerie in a non-heated building these days is not really cosy and comfortable) we got into the car with the heater on max. and drove to muziekbos, Ronse. There we did these exterior shoots. some different clothing sets, and after a while we got lucky and grabbed some sun-rays. Sharon got cold again at the end. 🙁

first set of three is done with my self made reflector, all the others are available light only. Oh, and the entire shoot was shot with Canon 85 mm 1.8. A very good lens for this purpose, and not really expensive.

Please enjoy this selection. Click to see full size.





Model Sharon

people, Personal Pictures

Hi,

two weeks ago I did a shoot with Sharon Vandenabeele, from Ronse. She is very much into modeling, and we worked trough a whole series of settings, clothes and locations. Fun working with a model who knows about posing like she did. A selection of the things we did inside, I’ll post the images we did outside in a while. Hope you like them.

Click image to view full size.







Model Kim

people, Personal Pictures

It is always nice to have a good looking model in front of your lens. When ‘en plus’ she is very easy posing, natural, feeling comfortable and joyful, a photographer couldn’t wish for more. I’m happy to present you some images from a shoot last sunday morning. We had planned an outdoor shoot, but the weather didn’t join in, so we decided otherwise. This is what I would call ‘A short portfolio session’. We worked for about one hour and a half, and only in one location.

Please enjoy, click images to view full size.

A short make-up session, …

… and ready to go.












Model Mien

people, Personal Pictures

Did a shoot some weeks ago, in the last late summer days of september. We tried some different things, had some fun and returned with some beautiful pictures. Unfortunately the model is very unsure of herself, so she didn’t allow me to publish a lot of pictures. Here a selection. Hope you like them.

On some images you can clearly see the effect of the self made reflector.

ludwig

click images for bigger picture!





DIY reflector

personal tips & tricks, Tips and Tricks

Hi,

everybody will know the difficulties of shooting a model in bright sunlight. Working with the model aimed at the sun will get you peeping eyes, working with the sun in the back will get you dark faces, unless flashed. Most fashion/model shooters use reflector screens to overcome this problem. Model with the sun behind, light reflected towards her/him to light up the model. Most famous make is Sunbounce. A decent reflector will make your purse at least 200 euros lighter, similar size as the one described here.
I’ve made a diy reflector last week. Cost to me: 0 Euros, because all re-used materials. Cost if materials bought new, probably below 10 euros. Time to make it: 15 minutes.
1. Take a insulating board, styrodur, (polystyrene) or similar, in a handy size. Mine is 60 cm x 125 cm. (approx 25 x 50 Inch) Make sure it is rigid, not styrofoam, since this will more prone to breaking.
2. Use some dots of silicone/adhesive, spread all over the board, slightly more concentrated on the edges to ensure a good fix. Rather use dots than lines
3. Cut a length of radiator reflector foil (the kind of foil you fix behind a radiator, to prevent the heat from entering the wall in stead of heating your room) , slightly longer than your insulating board.
4. Spread it nicely over the insulator board, reflecting side outwards 😉 . Press gently all over the surface, to make sure the silicone or similar gets well spread.
5. Trim the edges of the reflector foil to match the size of your board. Let stiffen the silicone.
6. Done.

I’ve been using it in my last shoot, works very well. Can’t compare to the real thing however because I don’t have one, but I saw my model peeping eyes when I came too close with it.

home studio shoot

people, Personal Pictures

I did a shoot today, in our attic studio room.
All images exept last one are taken with my new 85mm f1.8.
I bought this lens two days ago, secondhand.
Studio setup:

first image: flash above model (approx 2.5 m – 6 ft) I made a snoot with radiator insulator foil.

Other images: single flash, at the right side, trough 105 cm transp white umbrella, a small styrofoam board at the left side, to lighten up the shadows a bit. (this could have been a bit more, I had a hard time getting enough light there)

It is quite difficult to focus in a dark studio, but I had to cover the windows entirely because there was some sun entering at intervals. Luckily you can work with a small aperture.
Background black has been enhanced a little, because I had some structure coming trough.

I hope you like the images! A big thank you to my willing model and wife Nathalie!

 

shoot with kids

people

did a shot today with my sons and some nephews.

They all managed to model like a pro for about 5 minutes each. The pictures are taken in an attic of a typical industrial building, with glass panels on the left side. I hung a large with cloth on the right to get some light bounced back onto the shadow side.

Some results, all taken on EOS 5DII with 135mm f2:

martin portrait