It wasn’t deliberate but for a while, I just had to put my blog, workshops and LIME in the fridge and focus on my own work again. I spent a lot of time studying the work of people that I admire, re-evaluate my own work, meet creative people outside my own little network and did a lot of thinking about the direction I want to go.

You know how important it is to me to master as much techniques as possible but these are just tools to allow you to tell a story or convey an emotion. And I just found that even though my technique is better than ever, I wasn’t very happy with my pictures anymore. So I went back to the roots, keeping it simple, shooting for fun, focusing on feeling rather than detail in the shadows and perfectly level horizons. And I found it back … the amateur photographer in me.

With the changes in my personal life, things have changed pretty dramatically for my financial and business situation too. I’m not ashamed to admit that a visit to my accountant earlier this week wasn’t very motivating. And I would like to thank everyone who bought Motivational Light, because you gave me that little bit of breathing space to dedicate some time to rediscovering my own creativity.
To make things work out, I really need to grow my business faster than what would normally be possible but I believe I can do it thanks to finding myself as a creative photographer again.

I know I need to be more business minded. And I know that I need to make some decisions that I don’t really want to. But I’m still very positive that I can work things out. Last week, with the help of many great friends, I spent the whole time testing out ideas and concepts for a new big project that I will launch in September. I strongly believe that it is going to be a way to be creative and economically viable at the same time. All the images in this post were taken during that creative test week.

The test week was really the the result of all my self rediscovery activities. I’m charged with creative energy and feel like shooting every day again. I feel I’m ready to teach and blog again and all of that is thanks to my friends, family and my kids who have supported me through these difficult times.

I’ll be taking some time off to enjoy the kids but after that I’ll be back at full force! Promise

I just know that I have no choice but to move on and start a new chapter of my life. I’m in the clear with myself and I just try to make the best of it. I have the kids every other week and I miss them like crazy when they are not with me. But I can still be the father that I always wanted to be. After my wife moved out, I decided to take the kids on a trip to the coast to get our minds of the big changes and show them that I’ll always be there for them.

We had such an amazing time and all enjoyed every second of it. Even though it was pretty cold, it was dry and the sun was out most of the time. We also had a lot of good conversations on how we have to go from here both emotionally and practically. I’m so proud of the way the kids handle this. Off-course they feel lost sometimes but they don’t hesitate to talk to me. They also understand my situation really well and help me out so well.

Lately I found myself again. And that’s thanks to the incredible amount of help and support I received from my family and friends. I feel very lucky that I can count on so many great people.

My main concern is being a good dad but to do that I need to figure out how to sort out the many practical and financial challenges I’m facing. I really want to keep the house and the studio but that won’t be easy. I’m going to have to refocus on some parts of my business to increase my income substantially. Some things are still a bit vague but every day my plans take more form. You’ll discover them over the next months and I hope I can count on your patience and support.

Why the 50mm lens?

I promised to explain this project a bit more so let’s start by the lens choice, why did I choose the 50mm lens? Before (decent) zoom lenses start hitting the market, the 50mm fixed focal lens was considered THE standard lens and it often came bundled with SLR’s like you have kitlenses these days. A 50mm lens on a full frame lens is seen as the most neutral lens that comes close to the way the human eye sees. Our eyes can look at a wider angle but if you don’t count in the blurred edges of our vision, you’ll get a field of view close to that of a 50mm lens. Anything below that focal length can be considered a wide angle lens which distorts the edges and makes things close to the lens look larger than life. Any focal length above 50mm is in the tele range and starts to compress the depth.

I’ve been told that 50mm lenses are about the easiest lenses to construct. Most manufacturers have two or three version of the 50mm in their line-up but there will be at least one affordable lens. The 50mm 1.8 aka plastic fantastic may be flimsy, noisy and feel like a toy you get in your box of cornflakes but it gives you amazing image quality for around 100 EUR/dollars. If your budget is tight, you might at least pick up one of those if you are serious about your photography. On the upper end there are lenses like the 50mm f1.2 L which costs an arm and a leg (and maybe a lung). No doubt they are worth every of the many Euro’s if you use this lens all the time for professional work but I settled for the 50mm f1.4 USM lens. It’s much better build, more accurate in focusing and gives a better bokeh than the 1.8 but costs considerably less than the 1.2.

I used my 50mm mostly when shooting portraits in low light and for portraits with that typical ultra sharp, slightly cold look I find the 50mm gives me. But I never really considered using it a lot for anything else than portraits or for emergency low light work. That’s until I saw Jeff Ascough’s video on Canon’s Professional Network site (his blog is also an interesting read). Jeff says he uses the 50mm for 70% of his wedding images. That really made me smack my forehead repeatedly. Instead of seeing the limitations of this prime lens, I should be using the potential of it. So I started playing with the 50mm a bit in situation where I normally wouldn’t use it and got really excited. It’s wide enough to make establishing shots and it’s long enough to pick out details if you move in a bit closer. Because of the fast aperture you can work in near darkness and isolate subjects from the background. But what I found the biggest asset is that I could work a lot more low profile. I used it mostly on my 5D mkII (without the grip) and noticed that I could get really close to people without drawing too much attention. Try that with a 1D and a 24-70. What I always liked about primes is that they force you to look hard for creative angles that will give you better pictures.

These couple of little experiments tasted like more, so that’s why I came up with the 50/50 project.

The biggest thank you should go to Sille who designed and programmed the site from the ground up on the Wordpress platform. The new logo was made by Shiva. Both had to be very patient with me, but did incredibly well.

I’m aware that there are still some minor bugs and typos in there. And I would certainly appreciate your input and remarks on the design, usability, navigation, … I’ll be taking some time off but when I get back into the working mood, we’ll examine all the input and make the site even better. Ideally a website should be a living thing to me and I think I have now a sturdy platform from which I can keep growing the site.

During the whole process of building the site, I’ve learned a lot and I will share it with you in a couple of weeks.

One of my main concerns for the new site was to show the pictures big. After all, taking pictures is what I do. You will have noticed that the blog design also has been changed to allow for way bigger pictures. There’s still a lot of unfinished pictures on my hard drive that aren’t ready to be shown. So to test out the bigger pictures, I’ve just put up some impressions of Oslo on a soaking wet day (the day before the Oslo workshop).

I hope you like the new site and like I said before: feel free to comment!

Here are some of the results from a fashion shoot I did for Enolah a while ago:

I once spoke at a photo club with a very conservative view on the art of photography. Their response to my work: colors are unnatural, no detail in the shadows, blown highlights and way too little depth-of-field. I’m sure my strange crops and weird locations made some of them throw up in their camera bags. And you know what … I don’t care. I even tend to refuse those jobs where I have to keep within strict technical guidelines.

Too be honest, I wasn’t sure I was the perfect match for this shoot. But then lightning struck me. Refusing this assignment wouldn’t make me any better than the photo club guys. For a moment I was too arrogant to see this. But my job is to tell stories in the best possible way and for my client that was the way these pictures are. My challenge was to do the best possible job within a tight framework. The fact that my favorite model Erika, was going to be the model for this job and that I liked the clothes helped to take on the job too.

Soft light, detail in the shadows and highlights, working on a tripod, white seamless, f8, … it seemed so unlike me but to my surprise I really enjoyed this shoot. I enjoyed the challenge of lighting the details and structure of the fabrics without making the pictures look flat.

Once the lights, the background and the camera were set and Erika’s spot was marked we didn’t change the setup for the rest of the shoot (except for some minor adjustments). A lot of the atmosphere had to come from the poses and working in such a fixed setup allowed me to completely concentrate on posing. I found that to be extremely rewarding.

I adore the clothes and when I started talking to Griet, the designer, I immediately felt a connection. The philosophy behind her designs are very close to my views on photography. She also knew very well what she wanted and didn’t loose any time on changing her mind. I was shooting tethered (wifi) and once Griet saw the image she wanted appear on the laptop, we could move on to the next setup very fast. Nicki could have been a model herself but on this job she did a fantastic job with the make-up and styling. And Erika … well, she keeps amazing me.
I really enjoyed working with such a creative team. No ego’s, just working together to get the best results.

Check out the complete collection at the Enolah website.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege, and it really was a privilege, to document the baptism and welcoming party of Tigist. This little girl shouldn’t be allowed to smile near the North Pole to prevent icebergs from melting and significantly raising sea levels.
Since she was only a few weeks in Belgium, I expected a shy, maybe even a bit scared, child. Instead, I met a funny, cute and lively princess. It was like she was putting me at ease instead of the other way around. It clicked from the first moment.

Tigist really enjoyed the calming presence of her big sister.

I was amazed by the strong family ties they created in such a short time.

A couple of weeks after the baptism, I also shot the welcoming party of Tigist. It was held in a very cozy venue but as usual with this kind of spaces, it’s not easy to photograph. The 5D mkII made it possible to get great quality images in the mostly very dim situations.

Tigist is a real artist that loves drawing.

She practically decorated the whole space in just a couple of hours.

I’ve been moved by the warmth of this family. I’m sure that they have a very bright future ahead of them and I wish them an amazing journey together.

And to end this post, this is my favorite picture of the set:

I’m very tempted to use something like Bluedomain or Bigfolio. Their sites look pretty cool and easy to use. But most of their templates are flash-only. I hear it’s not great for your ranking in Google and it can’t be displayed on an Iphone.

Livebooks and  a photo folio seem to have solutions for it but Livebooks looks a bit too expensive and I’m not crazy about the designs of A Photo Folio.

A custom made website might be the best solution, but will it still be affordable? Or maybe have a Wordpress site designed. I’m familiar with the interface and the blog is the most important part of my site anyway. If I go for a custom build site, I want a local company so we can sit together in person.

Here’s what I absolutely want:
- fast loading portfolio site with huge images
- a couple of info-pages
- integration of my blog
- easy content management
- password protected client proofing

Optional:
- online ordering module

Do you have any experiences, comments, … Please let me know.

5 photographers
2 cameramen
24 hours
560 kilometers

No clients, no restrictions and no editors to limit our creativity on this quest for pictures.

Follow our photographic adventure live on www.thebouncesquad.com
starting on Monday 9 march 2009 at 10 am (GMT+1).

If we pass by our neighborhood, feel free to join us for some fun.

This blog made it in the top 100 photography blogs on the photography colleges blog.There are probably some other interesting sites to discover there.

Time Flies! 2008 has been one hell of a rollercoaster. I had so many great moments with my family and friends, I met so many fantastic new people and I was lucky to be able to enjoy so many amazing photographic challenges.

Time Flies and has become a bit of a double edged sword to me too. I rolled from one thing into another and enjoyed every second of it. But I also started to miss some time when nothing happens, some spare hours for Bert, not Bert-the-photographer. I love photography so much that it hardly ever feels like working but the pace I’ve been living at for the last two years has been just a bit faster than my natural clock. I’m not suffering from a burn-out at all but I want to prevent that from happening in a few years time.

Time Flies and my kids grow every day. I feel very lucky to be able to spend so much time with my family. But if I’m honest I’m sometimes just too tired or distracted to enjoy the quality time like I should.

Time Flies and I don’t regret any second or decision. But now it’s time to slow down just a little and focus on the things I like most, both personally and professionally. The problem is that I can’t say ‘no’ and that I feel like I need to be a good father, friend, husband and photographer at the same time. Cutting back on giving back to the photographic community would seem like a logical choice but not for me, I even want to give back more. That’s why I decided to start LIME together with my friend Pieter. We figured that the only way to reserve the time to teach, inspire and motivate other photographers on a regular bases was to join forces and make giving back a little part of our business. That way I can cut back on some assignments I don’t really like and spend that time on LIME. From a business point of view LIME probably isn’t the best idea, there are other ways to make more money more easily. But from my personal point of view it makes a lot of sense. I hope it will allow me to spend more time on doing what I like most without a negative impact on my personal life.

Time Flies and it’s time to lift my photography to a higher level. In 2009 I want to spend some time on reflecting on my creative vision and redesign my business based upon that. I won’t take a 180 degree turn, but some modifications to my services and products are necessary to keep them in line with the evolution I went through since I started as a professional photographer.

Time Flies, so I want to get the most out of it. Organisation, streamlining, workflow management and outsourcing will be my keywords to ensure I spend time on the right things and stop to loose time on unimportant details.

Time Flies but shouldn’t make me forget to thank the people who make me a happy man:
- All of you for your comments, encouragements and critiques. You make me better photographer and person.
- My clients for giving quality photography a chance in a world where many people and companies are cutting back on creativity and quality.
- Fellow photographers for answering my questions and pushing me to new creative heights.
- Pieter for all the energy and humour he has put into a crazy project, and even more for his friendship and the good talks.
- My parents for their endless support and for being such fantastic grand parents to our kids
- My friends for forgiving me for not making enough time for them, for their support and no-nonsense approach to life.
- My kids for loving me with everything they have nomatter how many mistakes I make as a father.
- My wife for putting up with me on my bad days, for believing in everything I do and for making me feel like high school kid in love.

Time Flies, so I really should stop writing and hit my bed so I have the energy to spend a fun day with the family tomorrow.