Michel Engelen - Atmikes.eu

2012-01-28T20:27:00.003+01:00

Not every post goes deep into technical stuff, because it's often very repetitive and boring but in this one I'll tell you more about the used light setups.
As you know, i tend to keep things simple and i have to say that as i am evolving (well yes i think i do anyway) i'm getting less into technical issues and more into the models pose, looks, mood, look & feel etc

It becomes less important to me to make an image which is technically correct but totally sterile on the emotional and content side, it's a quest for a style that fits me, but for the moment, my holy grail is not yet know...

Light setup, 1 standard reflector on an Elinchrom Monobloc Rx, model in front of a white wall

Gridded striplight 140x30cm , soft, yet very directional light, fun to play with

Open reflector once again

210cm parabolic light modifier, big source but very directional en pretty flat light, looks a bit like the ring flash effect but still less flat and with directional shadow

Elise Corten, Mua Mir Goetschalckx

Elisa

2012-01-28T19:53:00.004+01:00

Get out the windmachine, what a nice mix with Elisa's long hair :-)

Changed the high contrast black&whites i often used for this softer look, it seems to hold a wider range, not like we have on film, digital will always be different which does not mean better or worse, just different...

Wetlook hair in combination with those eyes, just to make you melt :-)

WH²

2012-01-28T19:42:00.001+01:00

Whitney and her super kind young Huski, with such eyes i couldn't resist taking her picture :-)

I used the 120cm octa with grid, in the past i used the 120cm octa without grid a lot but i found the light very hard to control and often too flat, now with the grid there is a very nice quality of light and it is very directional which is really useful.

But she was looking for a photographer who could turn her into an amazing golden girl, and this is one of my latest looks that i can supply to models, always a nice addition for a portfolio

I have to say this looks works very well on skintones, i've been asked by a model to do it clothed which i refused because it would not comply to the entire look & feel i have in mind for this gold series

Renée and Peggy

2012-01-06T20:50:00.000+01:00

Window light, often imitated, never equaled...

Model is Renée Van Osta @Flagmodels

More than always amazing make-up artist: Peggy Timmermans

Previous where 100% natural available light, next three are more "strobist" because natural light was not satisfactory for this shot.

Camera Left, da über fantastic Westcott Apollo Softbox with the Sb-900 and on the door in the background another flashlight with a 1/2 CTO Gel to add a bit of warmth to the shot

This is the D700 at his best, ISO 2000, 100% windowlight (just a bit of late afternoon light)

Shooting with Peggy is so relaxed and we always have much fun, off course this results in some "we go crazy stuff " you can find more on her - Blog post -

Naomi

2012-01-06T19:53:00.001+01:00

Welcome to 2012.. I'm so glad with this new light modifier, the Walimex Pro series 120 cm octa with grid. Until now I only used the "normal" softboxes, strips, octas but as i have to transport them all the time assembly and disassembly was becoming a P.I.T.A (Pain in the ass)

The Walimex has an umbrella like system so this is way easier and the addition of a grid is just what i needed to get more control over my light, I'll be ordering the Striplights very soon ;-)

A bit of lighting and setup info for these black & whites

Front: on camera left the 120cm Octa with Grid
Back: on camera Left a 120x30 striplight and white seamless
D700 with 85mm ISO 200 ± f:8 / f:11

Aluminium foil + pretty face and the amazing make-up of Yinka Gboyega gave us some pretty pictures

Lighting and setup info:
Front: - Camera Left, Octa 120cm with grid, Camera Right striplight at 1 stop less than the Octa
And a bounce panel very low to fill shadows a bit from beneath
Back: White seamless paper

For this second and third result I tried to push the "whites" and saturation a little further than the previous picture...

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T13:00:00.003+01:00

"May you live long and prosperous"

Best wishes to all my blog readers!

Gold, part 2

2011-12-27T11:49:00.000+01:00

The golden girl, part 2 ..

Model is Karen DW - MUA: Liesbeth De Smedt

The next pictures gives you a little insight on the extensive post processing that goes into these "golden" pictures, count on ± 5 hours work / photo

Let's try out some different things !!

And a bit of a special Make-up look we wanted to try out, Liesbeth did a great job :-)

We even made it on the picture of the day contest that runs on Model Mayhem, woohoo!

Gold, part 1 (might be NSFW)

2011-12-14T16:59:00.001+01:00

Let's start with some gold, but ye be warned, some pictures might be slightly nsfw :-)

The idea behind these series was to create some intimate close-up portraits combined with a lot of golden accents, i pushed the warm golden tones in post (LR + PS)

This is something that works very good for me, it's pretty easy to reproduce, so if you follow my blog you will see a lot more girls getting the golden look, hope you like it as much as i do !

Model is Charlotte, Make-up & Hair by Adele!

Okay let's change the setting a bit, more white, striplight from behind left and main light in the 120cm octa, white seamless

I don't know what movie you think of when you see a chair of this type but if you grew up in the 80's i bet it begins with a capital E... :-p

Don't trip over the cable dude!

2011-12-02T19:59:00.001+01:00

I got a question last night about the high sync stuff i do a lot with the Nikon D700 and the SB-900:

"Why do you use a cable instead of the new generation PocketWizards with TTL & high sync capability"

After reading this question, i think it is time to share my view on this :-)

But first things first, Why do i need High Speed Sync?

Simple answer: because of fast glass, the sun and my willingness to shoot with strobe-light!

Technical answer: because i like to shoot my fast glas wide open or nearly so, let's say f:1.8 tot f2.2 and the Nikon D700 has ISO200 as recommended base, combine this with daylight and it's really easy to exceed the 1/250th sync limit... sadly this is way too fast for standard flash operation

What are the solutions?

Use a -2 or -3 stop ND filter witch will cut down the light and lower the shutter speed*

Close down aperture (but i don't want to do this)

Turn off the sun (can't do)

Lower the ISO to 50 or 25 (No can do)

Use high speed syncing (Yes, we can! and we will!)

(*) Using the ND filter feels like draining more battery power and the flashead has to work harder so this is only a second best option for me combined with a speedlight, if you are working with larger flasheads this is the way to go!

What are the High speed syncing options for a Nikon guy?

- On camera flash (no thank you)

- Off camera through the use of CLS, Nikon's creative lighting system (no can do, too much money for dedicated flash and there are some issues like "line of sight" between commander and units and some problems using this in broad daylight as it is based on infra red signals)

- Special (read expensive) dedicated Pocketwizards units that will allow a lot of fun and creativity (not the usual Pocketwizards, they will only sync to your max sync speed!)

- Off Camera full TTL Cable you can buy at flashzebra.com (only 1 flash can be connected)

I choose the Cable, but why?

it's 7,50 meters long which will allow for enough possibilities to place my flash head

in 90% of the shoots i will only use "1 extra light" setups (keep it simple, remember)

it's cheap and works like a charm

Light and portable, Just a guy with a camera and a flashead on a light stand

no need for extra batteries, triggers, receivers

I keep full manual control with the extra of going over my max sync speed

And if tomorrow i go out shooting with the PhaseOne or the Hasselblad i won't get far with the special pocket wizards, or even less far with dedicated Nikon flashes and CLS...

I hope this clears out my choice and if you too have questions, don't hesitate to contact me!

http://flashzebra.com/

Arwen @ Hofstade

2011-12-01T21:50:00.001+01:00

Arwen just turned 16, sweet sixteen as they say :-)

As the Bloso domain of Hofstade was strategically placed in between of our homes we quickly decided this was going to be the ideal place for our shoot together and we got pretty lucky with the weather too, 15°c and sunshine in November is not really normal but you won't hear me complaining!

MUA: Yinka Gboyega

All my shoots will be done with the 85mm 1.4 in the future, the 70-200 stays in the bag, i'm just looking out for a 300mm 2.8 that will be ideal for some close-up portraits, without the problems of close focus and deformation that you would get with closer focal ranges

Strobist info, once again i use 2 lighting styles:

1 the Sunbounce mini silver as a soft shadow fill

And as a second lighting setup , the "shoot-through white umbrella" lighted by the SB-900 triggerd with the Cord that will allow me to keep all manual setting but shoot high-sync

Chiara!

2011-11-13T20:05:00.001+01:00

This shoot with Chiara should have taken place a long time ago but at the time of our previous appointment Chiara was sick and unable to shoot.

I've replaced my Nikkor Af-D 85mm f:1.8 with the more exotic and new 85mm Af f:1.4 G and i'm really impressed by the sharpness at f:2.0 or even at full opening f:1.4, color rendition and contrast is just perfect.

The AF of the 1.8D version is faster, the 1.4G being "slow" and certainly so in low light but it's accuracy makes up for it big time, the Bokeh is amazing, just like the "old" one.

I tested the old 1.4D a time ago but i found that the corners never got sharp, even at f:8 it isn't 100%, and compared wide open at f:1.4 the newer G version is A M A Z I N G
(G version = "the crippled one", because the lack of aperture ring)

If there ever comes a new version i'm sure they will ad VR to make us buy a new one :-p

Lucky me, for this shoot i was still accompanied by Minne as co-shooter / assistant, she is the one holding the Sunbounce PRO zebra panel for these shots.

As these are made in October, the sun is pretty low and it makes our job a lot easier shooting at noon and filling the shadows, also color temperature of the natural light feels better to me.

Suddenly a little bit of clouds appeared, but the sunbounce is still able to fill those eye-sockets with just enough light to make for a nice portrait :-)

MUA Sandra De Moor

This shot is Wide open aperture, 85mmG f1.4, Fill light with the Sunbounce Pro zebra

2 possible compositions in 1 picture, i thought this was a nice effect in post

Chiara is a though girl!

All pictures 100% natural light + bounce panels, no added flashlight was used or abused to make these ;-)

Myrthe @ sea

2011-11-04T23:06:00.000+01:00

You won't be seeing a lot of sea in this series because it we did not go tho Ostend to take pictures of our North Sea but we went there to photograph Myrthe!

When i say "we", i mean Sandra De Moor as our MUA and Minne Van Den Noortgate as my co-photographer.

Minne took some excellent pictures too, you should check out her work :-)

Myrthe, is amazing, with her beautiful hair and amazin' eyes she has a lot to make it easy for a photographer to take great pictures!

More and more i'm going back to basics and work with natural light combined with the Sunbounce panels, it makes shooting a lot easier and quicker which is nice for the model en results in more pictures. But when needed i can reflect to the help of some additional flashlight. But as said, the entire shoot was done using only 1 big Pro Zebra panel and 1 Mini Siler Panel, you will see them as a catchlight in the eyes :-)

Light coming from behind is always amazing, certainly so when the sun is placed very low

I have to say we got pretty damn lucky with this shoot on location, the weathergods were really on our side, shooting outside in belgium on the 31st of october is pretty amazing and we even had decent temperatures, i even took of my coat at the warmer hours of the day

No fill on this one as i think Minne who was in charge of bouncing was in fact takin pictures too :-p

Almost same setting but with light bounced back (look at the eyes!)

And a more cinematic approach

For this shoot we provided basic styling, time was too short to shoot every outfit and Minne brought some stuff too so we had a lot to choose from.

Styling is really what makes the shot come to live, so i hope to be styling a lot more shoots in the future

For the following pictures we got inspired by one of our colleagues who is known for always placing his subject between his camera and the sun, metering exposure on "the dark side" and not using any fill techniques + adding some funky colors to it in post

First picture with the sun shining in the lens to generate some lensflare

All was shot with D700 and the AF-S 85mm f:1.4 G

Brooke

2011-10-22T21:52:00.003+02:00

Recently I had a nice shoot at the studio with Brooke, Mua was Jilke Juliens!
The studio is absolutely not my favorite place, i've said it before and i'll keep repeating it, sorry guys but for some very controlled portraits or catalog fashion works it is the right place, i admit.

Working in the studio can be really easy or very difficult, but as a photographer you can choose which path you choose, not always so on location..

For this first shot i would like to point out the use of the color temperature as a creative tool, if you're not already convinced that working with the RAW format for your photographs is the right choice let me tell you it is (out of cam JPEG sucks, yes it does, i'm sure of it)

The two following pictures are in fact 1 and the same image, i just started from a different color temperature to finish each of them, we talked about correct exposure in my previous post, now think about correct color temperature....

-I like flexible models -

Elena!

2011-10-05T23:56:00.001+02:00

- ELENA -

Let's begin with a behind the scenes "BTS" shot, the importance of good Make-up, hair and styling is often underestimated!

Elena is much younger than the girls or woman i usually get in front of my lens and these teens ask for a different approach, coaching is on another level, it has to be more playful without turning yourself in a total moron, because once your status changes from cool to annoying your dead :-p

MUA: Sandra de Moor

Light the eyes, i can't repeat it enough, put some light into those eyes to make them "pop", having a really sharp lens and getting them in perfect focus helps finish the look (Nikkor Af-D 85mm 1.8)

Okay here is some lighting | strobist info:

I wanted a fresh, commercial look, so i lit it in a commercial way! On camera left high in the sky the sun, much closer to the camera a California Sunbounce Pro with -2/3 stop diffusion screen (bit like a Sunswatter) on a light-stand. The diffusion screen actually changes the harsh contrasty sunlight into soft and diffused light, just like a softbox with a continuous light source.

Problem: The Diffusion screen takes away 2/3 of a stop which is almost a full stop less than what the background is lit.

Solution: Add 1 stop of light again on the model and she is in balance with the ambient.

So i added an SB-900 with my flashzebra TTL cable to enable manual shooting but retaining the high speed synchro advantages.

How to set ISO, aperture, shutter speed?

Easy solution: start at "sunny 16" and decide at which aperture you want to work

Sunny 16 states: your shutter speed equals your ISO at f:16 for a correct exposure on sunlit environments!
And i'd like to work at f:4 ISO 200

From f:16 to f:4 is 4 stops ~~less~~ (more*), so your shutter speed will have to 4 stops faster
1/250 + 4 stops is 1/4000th

But this is just a bit dull, so i choose to work about 2 stops ~~under~~ (above*) correct exposure to get a lot of highlights in the background ISO 200, f:4, 1/800 tot 1/1250th

The SB-900 was set between 1/4 and 1/2 M power with the high speed synchro enabled...

Makes you think about "correct exposure" not?

(*) made some edits after a comment from FreMan, less was more ... indeed!

Boudoir photography II (might be nsfw)

2011-09-28T20:36:00.001+02:00

As promised in my previous post i update my blog with some pictures from my last shoot with Manon.

Mua and Hair by Valérie de Roeck

I know i should keep the quantity of pictures low but for once i'll post a bit more pictures than usual... (I really could not choose, Manon is my muse!)

In this series i really worked a lot with available light only, i had a shoot through umbrella ready but never used it, only the mini sunbounce with silver fabric got used a lot

The light coming through the blinds caught my attention in the bathroom, it was only a question in posing Manon in the right spot, no additional lights or reflectors used

Just a bit of posing on a sofa.. D700, 85mm, big window with amazing light and a sunbounce silver reflector (mini) to fill the shadows, post in LR and PS

Manon thought we where going a bit too much mainstream, she asked me for something different... we gave it a try, hope you like it

This was outside, only lit by very harsh afternoon sun, Manon could not even look at me, that's why her head is turned away, i like this picture a lot because of it's look & feel and it's hard light, not something i use often.

Window in the back and a window behind me, perfect light sandwich for Manon, 100% available light (turned of the lights because they would have casted their yellow tone in the picture, mixing different light temperatures is not a good idea, well not here anyway!)

And a bit more Editorial style pictures, slightly overcast weather and the mini sunbounce for fill.

More glamour, more glamour..

Classic Hollywood style without the butterfly ;-)

Here i used the Falcon eyes reflective Sun umbrella behind Manon (picture left) to give an extra light effect, big window with natural light in Manon's right side

The Umbrella is powered with an SB-900 in manual mode with the RF-602 triggering system, the flasheads temperature is raised by several 100 degrees kelvin because of the "soft sun" reflective interior in the umbrella (bit of gold-ish an silver-ish like a Zebra panel but with more contrast)

Boudoir photography

2011-09-28T12:21:00.002+02:00

Boudoir also known as bedroom photography, a soft style of photography where the mood is very important, often the female model will only wear some lingerie. I think this is one of the most difficult forms of model photography because of the need for a mood in the lighting and the danger for a pose to become vulgar or unflattering.

Finding a proper location for boudoir is a PITA* the "problem" with most of them is the cost, i agree on people asking money to let us use their location but in the end it's me who has to sell the entire packet to my client. Most of my clients are models at the start of their career or even people who just want a nice set of pictures for "later", not the kind of people with a big budget.

Luckily some shoots are done at the models home, in their own bedrooms and this is good for their confidence as most of them expose themselves for the first time to a photographer wearing almost nothing or even less than nothing.

However i've planned a lot more in this style at the studio, i simply convert the studio to a bedroom with a inflatable bed (Intex) and some curtains (Ikea) and i will add some more stuff later (bedside lamps, clocks, lamps etc..)

This is one of the latest attempts made in our small but cosy studio.

How it's done?:

Dropped down the seamless white paper in the back and illuminated it with a standard reflector on a Bowens 500Ws head

Between the bed and the seamless, attached the (semi transparant) curtains to the ceiling, do this in a natural looking wave form so you get a backdrop on your photo that looks realistic. With this you get a nice soft directional fill light.

(The idea is to simulate a window with soft light by bouncing against the white seamless en softening it further trough the extra diffusion layer, if you want harsher light add a second flashead, throwing it's light directly through the curtain aimed at the model)

So in order starting from the back of your photo: White Seamless | flashhead | curtains | bed and model | camera and photographer

The main light was done with 2 white shoot through umbrella at a 1/2 ratio (one at f:5.6 an the other at f:4), these 2 heads move around all the time depending on the pose and the position of the head and are often positioned just slightly out of the frame to have the best effect of the umbrella.

Posing your model and making her feel confident about it is the hardest part, i'll have to work on that even more and as i don't like to work with zoom lenses i used my 85mm fixed focal, this makes searching for a good composition and DOF even harder.

One tip is to talk to the model while choosing your point of view, tell her she's looking great, the pose is perfect and that you're searching for the perfect composition. Set yourself in her place, she's lying on a bed, in a maybe pretty strange position, wearing almost nothing, anything that can set her at ease is welcome, so keep talking and explain what you're doing.

After taking the shot, show it to the model so she also gets en idea of what you're doing!!

Model: Xira
MUA= Miqel Thiriaux

In the next blogpost I'll show some resultst from an on location boudoir shoot, performed with 95% natural light and a bit of speed-light

(*) PITA = Pain in the ass

Back to school

2011-09-04T19:09:00.005+02:00

Headshots, that's really my cup of tea, this is right in my comfort zone. These are the first shots for Equipe Haircare, more will follow but the publications are meant for the end of the year so I'll wait a while before posting them on my blog.

Choosing apropriate lighting to create a good mood in the picture, keeping it modern, appealing and commercial and off course keeping enough lighting in the hair to emphasize what these pictures are all about, haircuts!

Of course the models where pretty amazin' too, they made my job easy :-)

Hair: www.equipehaircare.be
Mua: Tanja Dassy www.make-updeluxe.com
Styling: Sany Jeans

Models Brian & Talyssa

And the publication of Talyssa's photo

It's September so back to school, Talyssa is waiting for you !

La douce France, 2011 edition

2011-09-04T12:21:00.007+02:00

It's that time again, I'll annoy you with some pics from our yearly trip to the south of France...

The light is different over there, in the mountain area it's only slightly so because of the altitude i guess but near the sea it's definitely different in color temperature and spectrum, i see a lot of warmer tones, orange & pink are rendered much better, ideal for skin-tones i would say.
Bur we are not here to shoot models this time, we're here to relax and enjoy our stay.

First picture was taken from the small village of St-Croix, you can see the lac de St-Croix with it's amazing color and the Gorges du Verdon in the back (left side)

Nikon Af-s 24-70 with Circular polarizer

This is from the village Saint-Paul de Vence, if you want to create depth in an image try including some elements in the foreground said the book, so i did give it a try
Af-d 50mm @ f:2.0

The old city of Antibes (near Cannes)

And the covered Mediterranean market of Antibes

Oh my, Mojito time!

This is what i mean when talking about better color temperature

Fréjus coastline taken form the Jardin Bonaparte (St-Raphaël)

the Jardin Bonaparte (St-Raphaël)

The harbors are always amazing to visit, it's decadent to see how much money some people own :-p

Between all that luxury a fisherman's working horse

After comming here for years i tried something more abstract, you can still tell this was taken in a warm place with palm trees, don't you?

I was ready to photograph the firework, but because of a big storm they launched the firework early, too early, i was still at the restaurant, everything was set to take pictures so i photographed some other firework.
A pretty violent thunderstorm, the cloud hang so low it had a hard time passing by because of the Alps in the north

And a more close-up shot, exposure time about 15 secs (Bulb)

This is also a classic, Roquebrune, bit of an HDR from 1 photo to be honnest as lighting was not optimal.
"Little house on the prairie"

On route to the "Parc National du Mercantour"

And i even made you guys a little panorama from the "La vallée des merveilles" :

Blake Lauder!

2011-08-31T16:55:00.010+02:00

As always this shoot was plannend weeks in advance, but last minute changes are never far away...
The day before the shoot i got a phone call stating that Blake Lauder had to go on a casting with Mr. Edouard Vermeulen from royal-famous Natan and she might be a little later on our shoot appointment, no problemo, these kind of castings can be very important in a models career.
And yes Blake got selected together with 2 other models and she arrived perfectly on time for our shoot appointment!! Congrats Blake :-)

Natan launched a competition between the winning girls so Blake started up a serious campaign to promote herself in Flanders and they used my picture on the 24.000 flyers!

Be sure to follow her career I'm pretty sure we'll be hearing a lot more from this girl!

Open shade area, lit with the world famous shoot-through white umbrella and an SB-900, compo picture made with the always amazing photoscape software.

MUA: Sandra De Moor

Sunbounce pro zebra +

Sunbounce 2/3 Sunswatter and shadow fill with Pro zebra panel

This is not something i would do quickly but the sun was at just the right angle, lit by.. Sun only

Just ambient light, slightly overcast moment

And the very cool "Ugg's under dress" shot :-)

Bellis Perennis (NSFW)

2011-08-30T16:13:00.006+02:00

Bellis Perennis, wild growing beautiful little flowers, an ideal match for a more than inspiring model :-). This was going to be one of these very quick "tussen de soep en de patatten" shoots that are usualy only mediocre in results, but not this time, Maries did an excellent job with styling, posing, emotions and i really love these shots that show a lot of her skin, so NSFW warning here (Not Safe For Work, sorry dudes)

We started out in a little field, under a tree that provided us with a little shadow, but still there was a lot of light at noon (sunny day) and i really wanted very shallow dept-of-field (DOF) so i used about f2.2 / f2.5 on the 85mm Af-d nikkor, problem is that at ISO 200, the shutter speeds easily exceed 1/250th of a second an climb up into the 1/1500 to 1/4000...

As we were in a shadow area i needed to add some light... Luckily, last year i ordered the Flashzebra Nikon TTL extension cord (7.5m) so i was able to light this with the SB-900 on a light stand with white shoot-through umbrella, everything in total Manual control but with the benefit of high speed sync (Auto-FP).

Check the catch-lights for the position of the umbrella ;-)

I think the SB-900 was a 1/4 power with the extra battery pack to get good recycle times but this also prevents the overheating of the circuit in the SB-900 because the battery heat is now generated in the battery pack and not in the flashgun. Nikon battery pack cost me about €160 and i think you could better spend this on a cheaper solution from other manufacturers ;-)

We changed location as too many curious people came by while shooting, can't blame them...

Corn fields tend to present a quick & easy backdrop en shoot location

Lighting setup is just the same as the previous series, but the sun was gone most of the time behind some thin clouds, didn't feel like bouncing that day i guess.

The cornfield is not only a nice backdrop but as you can see it is also a fine item to hide your model behind, or some parts of her in this case

Back to the Bellis Perennis! Little piece of untouched wild nature was going to be the backdrop for this little series, lighting info is still the same, SB900 with TTL cord total manual control and high speed sync :-)

Comments are more than welcome :-)

Julie D.

2011-07-30T20:08:00.002+02:00

A nice assignment for me once again, (yes i do some more boring stuff that i won't post on my blo6) shooting with Julie Deaulmerie & Gaëlle Verspeelt as Make-up Artist at the Baasrode Museum.

Julie brought a hat, she thought it would give her a Bad-ass look but I think she's just too cute for this gangster stuff :-)

Lighting info: Sunmover held by Julie to "cloudbounce" the light back-up, seeing the pictures on my computer screen, i think the effect in the eyes is a bit too much and I should have kept the sunmover (silver fabric) a bit further like I would normally do!

Lens info: 135mm f2.0 AF DC @f3.2 with DC set to Rear 2, only the eyes are really sharp

First shot is more Behind the scenes, Model an MU having a good time, some time to relax during a shoot is really important ;)

Lighting Info: Sunbounce Mini on the right "Cloudbouncing" a tiny amount of light back up into the eye sockets of the model (zebra fabric)

Lens Info: 135mm f2.0 AF DC @f2.0with DC set to Rear 2

The pieces of wood made a nice backdrop / setting that fit the mood of the clothes Julie was wearing, I gave it a more editorial look as i think this would fit best. I had to climb onto a ladder to get the angle / point of view exactly as I wanted it :-p

Lighting Info: Sunbounce Mini on the right "Cloudbouncing" a tiny amount of light back up into the eye sockets of the model (zebra fabric)

Lens Info: 85mm AF D 1.8 @f2.2

Lighting Info: Sunbounce Mini on the left, Zebra Fabric (Still very clouded)

Lens Info AF-S 24-70 f2.8 @ f:4 62mm

I chose the zoom lens over the fixed focal because we started out at very small shooting location, i did not like the first pictures so I will not post them. I'm not happy with this lens, i shot at f:4, to avoid the f2.8, center sharpness is excellent, but corners.. oh my... too soft for this type of pro series lens!

Julie thought these pictures were too much "Babe" looking.. yes they are, but not too much, can a women ever be too much babe looking anyway?

Lighting info: 800Ws ringflash in the Big momma Westcott Softbox on the left, measured at F8.0 + 6/10th of a stop. 50/50 ratio to ambient

Lens info: Af-S 70-200 f:2.8 with - 0.8 ND filter (0.8x less light = - 3 stops) so i decided too shoot at f:3.2

And the Big Softbox (125cm square) on the right, big, nice & soft light.

3D

2011-07-23T15:51:00.003+02:00

As I get an enormous amount of request for free shoots a new idea came to my mind, every month i will be giving away 1 free shoot with mua. The idea is that the applying models convince me with a special idea or special styling.

Qunneth approached me with the idea of combining her dark skin with a touch of color, MUA: Vanessa Cogorno

Front lit with 216cm PLM, back with standard reflector and medium size grid (both f:11)

After that we did some 3D photography ... :-p

(front light = Hensel parabolic)

And i experimented a bit with low-key and dark skin

I have to say that working with dark skin is very challenging in nailing a good exposure, i'm never happy with the results provided by my light-metering method and same post as for Caucasian , so Qunneth was an ideal candidate :-)

Laura in the Jungle

2011-07-23T14:44:00.003+02:00

As Laura was in need of new pictures she booked a new session with me, Mu by Eline Van Gils.

"A different corn field"

Jungle beauty

Sunswatter + Sunbounce mini zebra from left (soft fill-in)

When working with the sunswatter to temper the harsh sunlight, the shadow that is cast under the subject may appear very unnatural, if you choose a very low shooting angle / pov you should get away with it easy :-)

group of redhead flowers

We found an old caravan, thought it might produce some crazy pictures...

Jolien at Sea

2011-07-23T14:17:00.002+02:00

As Jolien and her mom heard that I was shooting at sea, she immediately booked a new session, it was going to be a rather short session while the sun was going down.

MUA: Gaëlle Verspeelt

As always in Belgium, the weather is unpredictable, you never know if clouds are suddenly going to appear while the sun moves away and makes room for the "dark night" and yes, no spectacular sunset but thin clouds hide away the beautiful moment of warm sunset colors and color temperature moves up to 6000 - 7000 ° instead of the more flattering 3000° ...

Behind the scenes :-)

The shadow should have been more pronounced for this shot...

Only ambient light, sun is almost gone here

And after the sun settled we shot some more with a small strobist setup, SB-900 in the Apollo Westcott Softbox and the buildings as colorful backdrop

At sea

2011-07-23T13:40:00.003+02:00

Nice afternoon shoot with Steffi at our Belgian coast, Mua: Gaëlle Verspeelt

This must be one of my best portraits made with minimalistic setup, Steffi lying in the beach and Gaëlle blocking of the hard high noon sunlight with the sunbounce... keep it simple seems to work more and more for me.

Bit of bounce with the white side of the sunmover, harsh sunlight on Steffi's hair and back, retro finish

more bounce :-)

As we drove by looking for some dunes we just had to stop and take some shots in this "wild flower field".

Whenever I see this kind of pictures I always have to think 'bout the things that you don't get to see or you don't even know as a viewer, Insects going bezerk on the model and me, plants that sting and itch, falling, almost breaking your legs to get to "the best spot" in the field,... writing this I'm wondering why the best spot is always so far away..

Tip: If you plan on taking this kind of "on the field" pictures, tell your model to take a detour or you will be left with a path of destroyed plants on the result

Steffi told me she wanted to try out some less clothed settings and who am I to say no?

Near the water, lot's of people and stuff to keep out of the frame.
Wind, sand, salty water to keep out of the camera.