My make-up artistic did a great job with preparing the actor in less than an hour while I was busy fixing my strobe set-up which just broke minutes before (but I managed, hooray!). It took us a couple of hours to get all the different shots we wanted and it was really worth it. Everyone liked the more gruesome, bloody and horror-like shots more than other photographs. It made me really happy because I was afraid at first that these gruesome photographs were in fact too much over the top.

What helped us a lot is that we had a very specific goal and we planned the shoot from the very beginning till the very end – good planning helps a lot during a photo shoot, believe me. Although I still like to improvise during shoots (I do it quite often and mostly during TFP-like shoot for models), I also appreciate a good pre-defined and detailed plan for a photo shoot. The main lesson learned for me from this photo shoot was to be patient to my photo gear and to myself. I often stress out when a client has to wait for me so I can reposition the light, change this or that. However, I have never experienced having an impatient client and everyone appreciates the results at the end.

I love 2 things about blue jeans as a photographer: their color and their texture. Most jeans are in a really nice blue color spectrum and temperature, which is nice to look at and doesn’t overpower a subject in an image. Add a nice texture to this pleasant blue color and a good-looking model and you’ll have a perfect combination for  a photo shoot (not to mention you’ll also need good light but it’s a different story).

I had few photo shoots during my recent stay in (Gdansk) Poland in March and I asked Diana to be my model for a spontaneous photo shoot in the Oliwski Parc in Gdansk. We had a really nice weather, a bit cold but sunny. Although we met at around 2pm when the sunlight was still harsh, there was a lot of shadow from the trees and bushes which I used in order to get nice soft light on her face. I also used the sunlight as a hair-light. To my surprise, Diana had with her a couple of outfits and after about an hour shooting she told me she had a jeans outfit (jeans trousers  and jeans shirt).

We both like it so much that we decided to do the rest of the photo shoot in the jeans and I think it was a perfect decision. I particularly like how the colors of the jeans (both of the trousers and the shirt) and their texture fit into the bright light and spring feeling of the pictures. What do you think? I think these jeans are made for wearing … especially in spring

As some of you might already know, I spent my summer 2010 holidays in Gdansk, Poland, which is actually not only a beautiful town in the north of the country, but it’s also my hometown (surprise, surprise! ). I managed to convince my friend to model for me (it actually wasn’t so hard to convince her) for a photo shoot at the seaside. I always wanted to do a photo shoot at the seaside

Although the shoot was in the evening, the light was still quite hard so we did few shots under a pier and then we moved to a little forest just next to the beach. I used Nikon’s SB-900 speedlight for all the pictures taken in the forest and also for few of them under the pier.

Holistic Massage Studio - PR Photography

Holistic Massage Studio - PR Photography

It’s not a secret (if you read the title of this blog post) that my October customer was Jari Menari, Holistic Massage Studio (www.jarimenari.be) in Brussels. Tom Ackaert, the owner and manager of the massage studio, asked me to take few pictures for a new website. It was a very exciting experience for me to work for PR photography with him and his models. I must admit that it was also quite challenging for me because the room we worked in was about 7 m2 (square meters). I was really afraid that working in such a small room would be impossible but looking now at the results, I think the pictures turned out pretty well.

The good and very helpful thing was that Tom knew what he wanted from the very beginning. This saved us a lot of time but also put some constrains for me at the same time – because he knew exactly what he wanted, I didn’t have much room for my own creativity. I don’t complain here at all! I guess that I have to get used to limiting my creativity in times when customers know what they want and just do what a customer says. In other cases, I let my creativity, imagination and innovation take over my mind, body and soul

I guess that my adventure with Jari Menari (Holistic Massage Studio) is not over yet as Tom mentioned lately he would like me to take some more pictures for his new massage project (it’s a secret at the moment so I can’t reveal what it will be). I think it’s a good sign when a past customer comes back to you asking to do some more work for him, also for PR Photography – another happy customer who wants more of my work and services!

Portraits of Children

I met with my high-school friend in Poland during summer 2009. It was a great pleasure to meet her husband for the second time and even a greater pleasure to take few pictures of their kid Tim. While the kid is awesome, it was not easy at all to keep him stay in one place for longer than 2 seconds. So what did I do? I made a mistake – I was snapping pictures like crazy. Honestly, I didn’t have much of a choice, especially shooting with high aperture of f/1.8 and f/2.2 (shallow depth of field). I decided to use my AF-S NIKKOR 35mm F/1.8 lens for shallow depth of field as a special effect.

Portraits of Children

Well, I ended up with around 450 pictures out of which I have chosen only 45. Imagine that you have to go over 450 pictures and not only choose the best ones but also to edit them and do post-processing. You can imagine how much time it took. In fact, it took me 8 days (more or less). But I think it was worth it at the end. I believe that some pictures came out better than I actually expected. I’m presenting you only some of them here.

There is nothing much to write about it at the moment so I think I will leave you with this music video made out of pictures I took in Players Club Tattoo Shop in Maastricht (the Netherlands) in June 2009. You can treat it as a sneak preview for the pictures, which I will publish online soon on this website and on my Flickr Account.

(for those of who prefer a flash version, you can find a High Definition -HD- video on YouTube.com HERE)