People & Portraits

I published a review of the Orbis Ring Flash a while ago and I thought to share with you some of the pictures I took using it. When I started taking pictures with the Orbis Ring Flash, I noticed it was indeed producing a relatively* good light quality and that it can also be used as a light source positioned to the side from a model and the camera. The latter changes the purpose of the ring flash a bit, which is usually to produce shadowless photography.

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I like to work with only one light during certain photo shoots, especially on-location and outdoor. Having only one light in such situations (in my case it’s usually the SB-900 speedlight from Nikon) gives me lots of freedom in terms of movement from one location to the other and in terms of space. When I shoot with only one speedlight I also use an umbrella (almost 100%) and of course a light-stand. I used exactly that setup for this quick Forest Nymph shoot.

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Taking good (portrait) pictures doesn’t require expensive equipment. Sometimes, all you need is the knowledge about natural light and how it behaves and it can take just a minute to take a nice portrait picture. That’s all what it took me to take this picture – simple yet beautiful (at least to my personal opinion). I took the photograph with the subject standing very close to a window which was also covered with white-neutral cloth. This way I got a double-diffused natural light. It was all that simple!

If you would like to learn more about light, how to use it to your benefit to get amazing shots, I highly recommend Bert Stephani’s Motivational Light DVD.

I had a great privilege to work recently on an artistic photography portfolio for a French actor. While most portfolio photo shoots for actors are quite standard (front face shots and profile shots), we have decided to do something more artistic and unique. So we came up with so many great ideas during the brainstorm session that we had to narrow down the project to 3 thematic shoots. One of them was the Joker photo shoot and as it turned out, the Joker is still alive and he wants to put a smile on your face.

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I particularly like soft and nicely diffused natural light during most of the photo shoots (unless I decide that hard light is what I need for a particular shoot) and I use windows as light diffusers more and more often.

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Until only recently I was either using only natural or only artificial light (speedlight or strobes) in one picture at the same time. However, rules are meant to be broken (yes, it was a very weird rule I had to use only one type of light during a shoot) and lately I’ve been combining and mixing natural and artificial lights. I really like to use one type of light as a hair light and the second as a fill light or as the main light.

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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).

Continue reading “These Jeans Are Made For Wearing” »

I had an indoor photo shoot (in a rented out apartment specifically for it) in Poland. Since I live in Belgium and most of my equipment is there and I was traveling to Poland by airplane, I only had the photo equipment with me which I could put into my carry-on (camera, couple of lenses including 50mm f/1.8, SB-900 speedlight, a light reflector, etc.). Unfortunately, we had to shoot in the evening, which meant no natural light and which meant I had to put up a fight with artificial lights, lamps and white balance.

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Until just recently, whenever someone talked about pictures of a person taken in a mirror, I only associated this kind of pictures with Facebook profile pictures of teenagers (I think you know about what kind of picture I talk about). But I have discovered the great advantage of mirrors during my recent photo shoot in Poland – mirrors are great to frame a subject. There are other ways to frame a subject, for example with door frames, windows, trees, etc. but I never used a mirror to frame a subject before.

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I love working with people, professional or aspiring models, people who want their portraits taken, people who look for specific type of photography for their businesses, commercial or promotional purposes. However, it’s not always possible to prepare some of these photo shoots and often it’s necessary to improvise… actually you can never be confident that you’re 100% prepared for a photo shoot as a photographer. There are almost always unexpected things happening: bad weather, people not showing up or showing up late limiting your time for a shoot, location turning out different than you expected, etc (the list can continue forever).

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I’ve recently read a very interesting blog article Less Gear, More Character? by Bert Stephani and I have to credit him for giving me the idea on the following article. I completely agree with Bert’s opinion that gear can stand in a way between a photographer and a subject, especially when too much gear is used or the focus of a photographer is on the gear and not on the subject.

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If you have just started your adventure as a professional photographer or you plan to do that, probably the most often and important question you ask yourself is on how to have (new) customers. I won’t explain you here on the importance of a good portfolio, an appealing website and using web 2.0 tools (like Facebook or Twitter). However, I would like to point your attention to the importance of networking as a photographer, which some photographers (especially those new professional photographers) tend to forget about. Networking is actually much more important for having customers than anything else. YES! Even your thousands of followers on Twitter and hundreds of ‘friends’ on Facebook won’t give you as much opportunities for new customers as networking and word of mouth.

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