A couple of days ago I got an e-mail from the Imperial War Museums about a Don McCullin exhibition in London. I have a huge respect for war photographers. I believe documentary photography is the most relevant genre in photography and I wish I had the balls and commitment to be a documentary photographer.
McCullin is no doubt one of the best ever to document conflicts and their impact around the world. And the Shaped by War is an exhibition with the largest collection of his work ever.
A lone anti-war protester confronts police in Whitehall during the Cuban Missile Crisis, London, 1962 - Copyright Don McCullin
The people from IWM London were so nice to provide a promo voucher for you. Download and print this voucher to get two adult price tickets for the price of one (valid until 31 January 2012).
I’m currently looking for an excuse to travel to London (maybe do a workshop) so I can visit this exhibition myself. If you go, let us know in the comments, how it is.
Having a personal style is important as a photographer but it’s probably harder to achieve than gaining good technical working knowledge. It takes years of hard work to find and then perfect your own style and vision. I’ve come to the point that I sort of know what I stand for and I think my clients recognize that too.
So style is important but to me it’s also a dangerous thing to have. You can get too confident and too experienced. It’s at that point that your style stops evolving. I can only talk for myself but I’m pretty sure a lot of my friends face the same problem. We’ve build a large comfort zone and the larger it gets, the harder it is to get out of it. It’s the been-there-done-that-got-the-t-shirt disease. But it’s an imagined disease. You may have been there and done that but there’s always another higher level at which you can be there and do it.
A long introduction to tell you that I did a test shoot which contained pretty much all things that I already knew how to do and a number of things that I don’t like. The inspiration to do this anyway was the Creative Live class by renowned beauty/fashion/celebrity photographer Matthew Jordan Smith.
The first part of the course is build up largely about a relatively simple beautylight/clamshell setup (see above): with a beautydish above the camera and a silver reflector below. This setup gives you very even light that makes every woman shine. The background is a white seamless and is let with the same single light source We moved our whole setup (including model) back and forth until we got the right amount of light on the background.
I’ve never been a big beautydish fan, it’s not that it’s bad but it’s just not my taste … or haven’t I tried hard enough to master it? The answer is … YES. It’s just easier to go back to the umbrellas and softboxes I know so well. It took some time of experimenting with all the possible variations in the setup but eventually we settled for the small Elinchrom white beautydish with the white deflector and the diffuser fabric (aka “sock”). I needed to push myself hard to try to make it work and I needed to push myself even hard to admit to myself that the beautydish can actually produce a kind of light that I like.
Does that mean a beautydish always works? Hell no, it depends on the model, the make-up, the story and the feeling. And that brings me to the TEAM. Most of my assignments (and budgets) dictate me to work alone (or with one assistant), without make-up artist, hair stylist and usually I work with “regular people” (no models). I’m good at getting good results by improvising. But if I want EXCELLENT results, you sometimes need to assemble the best possible team around you. So I called out for help on Facebook and got myself a real dream team.
I’ve been working with models Lucie Goossens and Sylviane Alliet before and experienced their combination of a great personality with great modeling skills. Both are very experienced models but they are still driven by a passion to create better and different images. It’s that passion that got them to drive over 100 kilometers to an unpaid test shoot with knowing any decent pictures would come out of it.
The same is true for make-up artist Inge Van den Broeck who performed her magic on Lucie and Sylviane. And she brings so much more to the shoot than just a case full of expensive make-up products. She brings vision, style and creativity to the shoot. Stylish and fashionable as I am, my directions didn’t go much further than: “uhm, yeah … I want that kinda sorta commercial beauty look … but not really commercial, you know … just a bit different … uhm … edgy without being edgy …” But Inge somehow understood my idea and did truly amazing things.
The last crucial member of the team was assistant Steve Bayens (who also assisted and shot video on the 70 EUR Studio shoot). Steve is a young photographer who’s just starting out with studio work. What he lacks in experience, is easily made up with spirit, a good eye and his ability to ask questions that challenge me.
I should have added another member to the team to really pull this off: a professional retoucher. I’m sure I could have found someone to retouch these pictures to perfection. But I just needed to get some quality time in Photoshop. I’m pretty good with Lightroom and about 95% of my work is Lightroom only. It suits my love for the beauty of the small imperfections and it allows me to work really fast.
But I wanted to go for this crisp commercial look and it requires lots of small corrections in Photoshop. I figured it would be a good challenge to brush up on my rusty (and limited) Photoshop skills. On the commercial jobs I can rely on professional retouchers but I have some personal projects coming up which will require me to do my own Photoshop work, so this was a good exercise.
I pushed myself so far out of my comfort zone for this shoot, that I was actually pretty nervous at the start although I would be working with all people that I know and like. But in the end I’m pretty pleased with the results. It’s not that I will suddenly shoot nothing but this kind of pictures but I learned a lot that will certainly have an impact on my work.
This was just the first part of the shoot. I’ll keep the second part for a future blog post.
Way too long A while ago I announced that I was working on the return of the Confession videos. Due to lots of work and the fact that I keep changing my mind about the best format, it’s all taking a bit longer than expected. But I want these new videos to become a long lasting project, so I figure I better take my time. One of the videos we already shot is about seeing if a digital medium format camera could fit into my often fast and improvised shooting style. Until the video is ready, I thought I’d already write up a review (sort of).
Until now the Pentax 645D was the only MF camera that kind of fitted my requirements. That’s not to say that the other medium format cameras are bad, on the contrary, but I need near DSLR productivity for it to work for ME. When I talked about my requirements for a MF camera, the guys from Servix told me that I wouldn’t be disappointed with the PhaseOne IQ140. So I borrowed one with an 80mm 2.8 Schneider lens for a personal shoot that would test the camera in a run-and-gun improvised kind of shoot.
We used the PhaseOne in combination with my favorite Elinchrom Ranger Quadra and a Lastolite Easybox and the Quadra Adapter. There will be more technical and why-the-hell-I-choose-this info in the video. But let’s just say that I thought it would be a high end equipment package that fits my shooting style.
I didn’t have time to test the camera or even read the manual before this shoot, but it all felt very familiar. There are no complicated settings, just all the basic stuff I need. The camera is a heavy beast but it didn’t get tiring. It sits very well in my hands and I had no problem shooting handheld for a couple of hours. The IQ140 back is also easy to operate and has a nice iPhone-ish touch screen. And finally I found a MF back with a more than decent LCD-screen. I can really judge my pictures on this screen. Which is an absolute must if I should want to use a MF camera on a daily basis.
When it comes to handling, speed, ergonomics, battery performance, autofocus, … this is probably as good as it gets these days in MF land. It’s not quite as snappy as your normal high end DSLR but good enough for me not to get frustrated about it after an hour of shooting. In fact, for my portrait work I found the camera slowed me down just enough to make better pictures than with a DSLR. I sometimes feel shooting my Canons is a bit like eating at McDonalds: even if you have plenty of time, you still shove your meal in your face way too fast. I know that nobody is forcing me to shoot (too) fast with my Canon, but I can’t help doing it too often.
The huge sensor and the great glass, give you incredible files. I was blown away by the look and the detail of the pictures. It also seems like you can pull and push the RAW-files incredibly far and still retain great image quality. This is the main reason why I’d considering shooting MF and the IQ140 certainly delivers. I think I’m going to have a couple of really big prints made because the small web size certainly doesn’t do the images justice.
Before this shoot I was pretty convinced shooting digital MF was something I’d only do for my high end jobs. But now I’m not so sure about that any more. It’s still not a replacement for my 5D2 when it comes to reportage but I’m going to rent a Phase One more often for portrait and commercial assignments. The big issue is still: can I justify the much higher price for my work and my clients? At this point, I don’t know the answer, but I’m certainly going to give it some more thought.
I’m sorry if I gave away how one of the upcoming videos will end but I really like shooting with the PhaseOne.
Lately, my buddy Stijn and I have been having conversations about “Why does nobody do any snorkeling in Belgium?” The answer might be that there’s only cold and murky water around here. But as scuba diver who both have been enjoying the Belgian underwater world, we know that it’s actually worth wrestling into a thick wetsuit and still have your ass frozen after two minutes. We also agree that you often see the most interesting things during the shallow part of a dive. So why not leave the heavy scuba gear at home and just go snorkeling?
And that’s exactly what we did on a grey Sunday in November. Finding a suitable snorkeling location was a challenge. We didn’t want to go to the known diving spots and I couldn’t find a single snorkeling location on Google. So we decided to just go to a fishing pond nearby and see if it was worth the plunge.
I must admit that two guys walking towards a fishing pond in wetsuits carrying underwater cameras get some very strange looks from hikers, joggers and dog walkers. But hey, I’m almost unrecognizable with a mask on my face and a snorkel in my mouth.
When I was getting my underwater photography kit ready, I suddenly got the idea to use the SLR Magic 12mm Hyperprime with the Olympus E-PL1, which I use for underwater photography. A quick test, confirmed that the lens actually just fitted my Olympus underwater housing. As you can see from the above the water shots, there’s some vignetting because the housing’s lens port is a bit too small to give the Hyperprime an unobstructed view. But being a vignette-fan, I don’t care.
The biggest challenge was to operate the lens underwater. With gaffer tape and some pieces of old wetsuit, I managed to operate the lens’ focus ring with the housing control that’s usually used to control the zoom settings for the 14-42 Olympus kitlens. I set the aperture somewhere between 2 and 2.8 knowing that I wouldn’t be able to change it once i locked the housing. This improvised setup worked pretty well for 10 minutes but then my construction stopped working and the focus was stuck at around 10cm in front of the lens port. This wasn’t really a problem as the whole reason to use this lens, was to try some close focus wide angle shots. So the rest of the swim, I was convicted to finding subjects and then rock the camera back and forth to get them in focus.
After the initial shock of cold water entering your wetsuit, it was actually rather doable in the water. Visibility was around 1+2 meter, which is pretty good in Belgium.
We figured that as this is a fishing pond, there should be some life in it (or some very stupid fishermen around it). But this time of year, nature goes to sleep and except for some plants, there wasn’t much life to discover. But I believe that there’s always a picture to be found. So I started looking for “dead nature”. Like mussels:
Dead crayfish:
Or submerged leafs and their reflection on the water surface.
I shot al these pictures on manual setting to control the ambient light and I let my Inon S-2000 underwater flash figure out the exposure for the main subject. Usually I set the flash compensation to minus a stop or so, but the Inon actually does a really great job on figuring the right exposure.
If you’ve never enjoyed the temperate underwater world, this might be very strange, but this was actually a very enjoyable experience for both Stijn and me. I will certainly do more of these little snorkeling expeditions. If you got a wetsuit and a mask, feel free to join us.
I’ve been playing around with the SLR Magic 12mm f/1.6 Hyperprime for a couple of weeks now. So what do I think of it after having used it a bit more after my first impressions?
Last week I did a family session with some friends of ours and their four fun kids. I shoot family sessions mostly with my 5D mk2, but I also keep the GF1 with me at all times, because particularly kids respond to that little camera different than to a huge DSLR. We had great hard sun light to play with under a huge viaduct. For the color pictures, I tried to imitate that same kind of light with a single off-camera speedlight in spots that the sun couldn’t reach.
So what about that lens? Well, it does everything the specs promise: it’s fast, more than decent image quality, it’s wide and full manual. For me those two last things are what holds me back to use it very often. First of all, I’m not a wide shooter, except when it’s extremely wide. The 24mm full frame equivalent focal length, is just not my thing. But that’s a very personal thing, I know lots of photographers who swear by that 24mm as the ideal focal length.
The full manual thing is another problem to me. Setting the aperture, is not a problem at all and the fact that it’s a stepless aperture, is nice (specially for video). The manual focussing ring is very smooth and in combination with the zoom function on the GF1′s screen, it isn’t hard to focus manually. But I often use the GF1 for some fast one-handed snapshots from the hip and then the manual focus is just too slow to shoot with a large aperture. But again, that’s a personal thing.
Does that mean that the Hyperprime will gather dust in the cupboard from now on? Well, it will certainly gather dust but only in my jacket pocket when I’m traveling or walking the streets. It’s a great and affordable lens to have with me for those occasions where my favorite 20mm 1.7 pancake lens, just isn’t wide enough. If I shot wide very often, I would probably replace the SLR Magic 12mm with the Olympus 12mm f/2 which is supposed to be a great lens too and it has autofocus. But it’s also more expensive.
Since I wrote the draft for this post, I think I might have found a really good use for the Hyperprime, but that’s for the next time folks.
I just got a mail from the Spanish Mambo magazine to announce they are launching a paper version of their online magazine in January. I didn’t even know the online magazine existed but being in love with the fresh wave of contemporary photography in Spain, I went over to the site for a quick look.
The quick look, turned out to be a pretty long look. The magazine is not about barrel distortions, new toys nor is it about lengthy arty farty interviews. It’s about the pictures and there lots of inspirational ones in there. I really dig the concept and the editors certainly seem to have an idea about who the up and coming photographers are. Very fresh, very inspirational, I’m a fan.
Last week all Twitter, Facebook and all the forums went crazy about Canon’s announcement of their new flagship camera: the EOS 1DX. The kind people of Canon Belgium invited me a week or two ago to the Canon Professional Solutions Expo in London so I expected a new camera would be coming up.
This was basically a press trip but I don’t consider myself to be a journalist so don’t expect me to give you a series of double checked facts. In this post I will only share my personal first impressions based on the specs, the presentation at the expo and my brief hands-on time with a pre-production sample.
For a blogger/photographer like me, a couple of beers and the use of a sofa can be considered a luxurious trip, but in the world of serious journalism there are hosts who hold up cards with your name upon arrival, nice hotels and “informal” dinners. Usually that’s not my kind of thing but I really enjoyed myself during the pre-event activities. All the people from Canon Europe, Worldwide and the different countries were very approachable. The usual hollow marketing talk was left behind in favor genuine discussions and conversations, nice!
The next morning we got up pretty early to attend a presentation about the 1DX at the Business Design Center before the doors opened for the general public. After reading the specifications of the 1DX a couple of days ago, I was really anxiously awaiting the presentation. Judging from what was known I thought Canon made some brave decisions that would really benefit today’s working professional photographer.
Let’s face it, without having tested the camera for a considerable time in real life situations, we just don’t know how it will perform in the field. So let me make it clear once more that everything I write at this time is purely based on specs, theories and a couple of minutes with the camera in my hands.
But as I said, I felt pretty positive about the camera and the presentation only made that feeling stronger. The presentation was kept short and highlighted features that are really important to working photographers rather than useless high tech bells and whistles.
Here is what I think:
The 1DX is an all-rounder without too much compromise
I think this is the most important thing for most modern day photographers. In the past I’ve seen lots of high end cameras that were made for a kind of specialized professional photographer that doesn’t really exist anymore (or very few). I know that most icons in the photography business advocate specializing. I agree with that … in theory. But the reality is different. Financial recessions, technological evolutions and the speed in which markets move have changed the game. Once you are an established household name, you might be less affected by the speed of changes. But I know excellent photographers who did very well for 20 years and then suddenly had to find a new market in order to survive. I can only speak for myself and I can say that I would have been bankrupt many times if I didn’t combine commercial work with teaching, portraiture, corporate events, … So I need a camera that I can use in these very different circumstances. At this moment the Nikon D3 is probably the best all-round pro camera. If my expectations about the Canon 1DX are fulfilled, Canon has said the new benchmark.
Oh yeah, before I forget, Canon also has a new printer: The Pixma Pro-1 but I don’t know much about printers, so I’ll leave that to the people who do.
Because, I had a train to catch and little time to spare after the presentation, I was the first non-Canon employee who get to play for a couple of minutes with one of the pre-production models. Without going into too much technical detail, here’s the most important points, I remembered. And the reasons why I think it will be the best all-round pro camera when it hits the market (expected in April – May):
ISO performance
Less megapixels, means better high ISO performance. The camera also packs heaps of processing power and advanced algorithms to reduce noise. If I understand it right there are no more gaps betweens the micro lenses on the sensor which should make each pixel receive more light too. We were not allowed to put our own CF-cards in the camera (which is common with pre-production cameras), so I haven’t seen a real file. But I did shoot some shots at ISO 51.200 and zoomed in on the LCD and it seemed usable for weddings and reportage work. It’s in no way a scientific approach but I think we can be pretty sure, this camera will have great ISO performance.
Image quality and resolution
I have nothing bad to say about the image quality of my 5Dmk2, so I’m pretty confident the 1DX will not disappoint. At 18 megapixels, found the perfect middle ground between resolution, image quality and noise.
Autofocus and speed
12 Frames/sec is fast enough to satisfy the sports shooters, so it should be fast enough for pretty much anything. And the best thing is, that you don’t have to give up image quality for that speed. The autofocus system is completely redesigned and seems to be adaptable to the needs of individual photographers and individual needs. I did some testing in the low and flat light of the press room and deliberately choose the 50mm f/1.2 because it’s not exactly know for fast focussing. I was pretty surprised by how fast and snappy it locked focus and followed moving subjects.
Video
There are no real revolutions maybe but Canon has build upon the great video capabilities of the 5D2, 7D and 1D4. They must have realized that these cameras are widely used in the video industry and they build in new and improved features that make the 1DX a tool that fits better into the world of professional video.
Ergonomics, build quality and “feel”
An often underrated parameter when it comes to choosing a camera is the “feel”. It’s a tool you’ll have to work with every day, so it better feels right to you. This is a very subjective thing that only you can judge. But to me the camera felt familiar yet somehow less bulky and heave that the former 1D-series. The layout of the buttons and dials is very logical and even better than the previous versions.
It sure is way to soon to come up with conclusions. I hope to do a real test with the camera soon, so I can decide if I will sell a kidney to get this camera.
A big thanks to Canon Belgium for inviting me and the great working relation we have developed. On the (by the way excellent) Canon Professional Network site, you can find a lot of info on the 1DX. Very soon there will be a whole series of videos about the camera too.
A while ago I wrote about Piet Van den Eynde‘s Craft & Vision e-book “Making Light”. I also wrote that Piet interviewed me (and 4 other Belgian photographers) for the sequel of that e-book. And now it’s here: Making Light 2
Piet really has a way to accumulate lots of information and then distill in into a clear e-book. When I started out using off-camera flash, the challenge was to FIND the information. These days all the info is readily available on the internet but the challenge is to find the right information and connect the dots between all these fragmented snippets of information. These two books can certainly save you a lot of time and frustration by giving you a shortcut in your learning curve.
All the Craft & Vision E-books are only 5$ a piece which in many cases is a steal. For the next couple of days Making Light 2 will only be 4$ if you use the code MAKINGLIGHT4 when ordering. Or you can temporary buy both books together for 8$ by going to this link.
I’m proud to be in this well written book together with some of my friends and fellow Belgian photographers. The guys at Craft & Vision also allow me to give away 10 copies of this e-book. I only need to figure out some kind of silly competition to determine who’ll get them. Any ideas?
Almost four years ago I started my own YouTube channel. At the moment there are about 30 videos in there. Many of you found their way to my blog and social media profiles through YouTube and over the years it has served me incredibly well. I started it because I wanted to give something back to the photography community but as it often goes with things you do with a passion, it turned out to be something way bigger. The craziest things happened to me and my career (partly) thanks to my YouTube videos.
This was what got it all started:
Many of my friends thought it was crazy and stupid to put so much time and effort in creating these videos while at the same time giving away my knowledge for free. I’m not know for being smart, nor for being a good businessman but what started out as a passion for sharing turned out into so much more. It’s hard to tell how much business these videos create but one thing is sure: it helped my business in a big way. It creates name recognition for me as a photographer and teacher. It helps to convince people that my workshops and DVD are worth it and occasionally I even landed a job only because someone saw one of the videos.
But the most important thing is that these videos help me to grow as a photographer and have gotten me in contact with loads of interesting, great people. Many of them have became friends that supported me when I needed it, invited me into great conversations and made me laugh more often than ever.
It’s passion that made me start sharing these videos and it’s the same passion that made me keep doing it on an irregular bases. I get asked maybe 20 or 30 times a week why I don’t make these kind of videos more often. The answer is simple: it takes an incredible amount of time, energy and gear (aka money) to make a single video however basic they may be. From a business point-of-view it doesn’t make much sense anymore to do more videos. I already got more work than I can handle. The thing is … I love producing these things! It’s not so much the process of making a video that is fun. It’s the part that forces me to do personal work and figure out a way to make a picture that’s hopefully better than any of my previous work. So what do I do?
About six months ago, I sat down and spend a full day trying to answer that question. In short, the answer is:
If I can find a way to keep making photography videos without jeopardizing my business, I’ll do it.
I’m not sure if I can do it but after lots of thinking I decided to invest lots of time and a bit of money in at least giving it a try. How? Well let’s see if I can make it work by producing a combination of free and very affordable videos.
I did a lot of test projects. Some went better than others but I learned from all of them. By now, I think I figured out more or less how to create good content and still keep it manageable. At the moment there are a number of videos in different stages of production. There will be the free classic short YouTube videos but there will also be much more elaborated paid versions. These will deal with the shoot from concept to post processing and will be made available for a surprisingly cheap price. I’m hoping to launch the first new video in a couple of weeks.
Behind-the-scenes of a shoot we did last week with my favorite model. Big thx to Serge for shooting the video on this shoot.
The subject of this video is to see what you can get out of a low end, limited kit of gear (Panasonic GF1, 20mm 1.7, Lumopro LP160 and Cactus triggers. Here are some more pictures of that shoot with my favorite model Erika:
I really hope you are going to like the new Confession videos so I can make a lot more of them.
This must be the most uninspiring and boring picture I’ve ever posted on my blog. Yet I want to share it with you because it reminded me about the gift of being a photographer. We often tend to underestimate the power of photography and the impact it can make on people just because we know we can make a decent picture.
My neighbor is half paralyzed and sits in a wheelchair. I admire her husband for his strength to support her and create quality to their lives. The sad thing is that my relation with the husband is limited to saying hi when I see him across the street. And I’ve only saw his wife once before … when an ambulance came to get her. Last week the man comes up to me and says he heard I’m a photographer and asks me if I do ID pictures on location. His wife needed some new ones but can’t get out of the house.
I don’t do ID pictures but I gladly made an exception for my neighbor. I could have referred her to a photographer in the are that does ID pics on location, except I don’t know any. It took only five minutes of my time to pull off this easy shot. In return I made some people happy and got the chance to know two warm people.
Recent Comments