About technique and more.

Model photography tips

A small tip for starting shooters:

 

I get a lot of questions about finding models so let’s give a bit of attention to this topic.

 

1. Friends and Family
Believe it or not but these are often the best choice if you want to start.

 

2. Websites
There are many websites offering models browse through them and find one you like and mail/PM them.

 

3. On the street
If you see someone you think could model just slip them a card and do a QUICK explanation of what you do, don’t take too much time. I found out that quick works much better, just before that moment that the “model” would feel like her personal time is consumed by you.

Nadine  Juli 27 2013                                                                         12802-Edit

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From MacBook to Windows8 machine

I guess this title will already have some people questioning my motivation, and over the last few days I’ve had a lot of questions when I posted something online about this “switch” so I thought let’s explain it in a mix of a review and tips/technique blogpost so I can point people towards this post when they ask 🙂

 

Let me start that with I love Apple products.
We own several iPhones, iPads and our studio runs on a few MacPros a MacBook Air, MacBook Retina and iMacs.
According to some we would qualify as Apple Fanboys, however I’ve always said that I just like the products and if something would come up that better suited my needs I would without a doubt start using that products. So let me introduce the replacement of my MacBook Pro Retina 15″….. the Sony Duo 13 i7,8GB,256GB.

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Seeing things differently

Today a small/big travel photography tip about “landmarks”

 

We all visit those places where we think “I really have to see this one”, however the biggest problem is often that the landmark has been photographed so many times that it’s almost impossible to shoot something that is different, and although in some cases it’s indeed impossible, I do hope to give you some tips in this blogpost to spice up your own travel photography shots next time.

 

I’m a huge Queen fan, so when visiting Montreux last week there was of course only one spot I wanted to go first, the Freddie Mercury statue, now this statue is placed in a rather busy boulevard and to be honest I hoped/expected it to be rather quiet, the weather was not so nice and it was not a real holiday period, but…. as usual with these kind of things it was rather busy. But I wanted to make the most of it (I was looking forward to this for a long time). Now most people will shoot the statue like this :

September 29 2013 (56 of 301)And yeah well…. this is actually how it is in real life. This was by the way the only shot I could take without any people around the statue, we have been there for about half an hour and this was the only time there were not at least 5-10 people around the statue and then I only got this shot pffff. Well anyway let’s look at the statue a different way.

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Small flash workshop Santa Cruz

Today some images from the Small flash workshop I taught in Santa Cruz.
As you might know I use the Rogue flashbender products a lot and over the last few years we have been become close friends to the team at Expoimaging, which resulted in the invite to visit their headoffice in Santa Cruz after PhotoShopWorld and if possible teach a workshop there. Working with small flash on location is something I love to do and teaching a workshop with only small flash is without a doubt not only fun but also a challenge, especially in the bright sun as you can find in California, this is not helped by the fact that I will often limited myself to just using 2 strobes because not all attendees will be able to afford 10-20 strobes. In other words one has to be creative 🙂

 

When I teach a workshop on location I always choose for smaller groups, this way it’s easier to give attention to the questions from the attendees and it has less chance of becoming just a “shooting zoo” which I think is a waste of time, when you attend a workshop it’s about the learning process right?

 

As always I started out with a Q&A session in which the attendees can ask whatever they want, this is actually always a fun and most of all a very informative part of the workshop because there always is a mix of technical and business like questions, plus I can really go into the questions the students have at this point instead of doing something that is “standard”. After the Q&A it was time to leave for our location shoot…. the Beach.

 

For this workshop we managed to find two stunning models which really complemented each other (something that not always happens).
The first setup was a mix of natural light and strobes, meaning that I started out with natural light and later on added the strobes.

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