I must admit, in the aftermath of the incredibly time and energy consuming adventure of creating my own instructional DVD, I got a bit burned out. I loved making it and I’m very proud of the result but it was a huuuuuuge job, certainly combined with my personal situation. It’s not that I had enough of teaching but I felt I needed to focus on my photography again. It’s a great feeling to teach other photographers but I started feeling like I was the only one that didn’t progress as a photographer.
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
As you know I’m very much in favor of photographers getting together and sharing their knowledge over a few beers. But don’t just stick to the beers and shooting for fun. One of the best ways to learn something is to join other photographers on real assignments. And if you’re there you might as well assist too.
Pieter dropped by for a coffee and a chat because he had to shoot one of his famous L-style Sessions in my neighborhood. We meet pretty often but I’ve only seen him at work a few times. Since I’ve had nothing to do and needed some fresh air anyway, I just invited myself to trail along on his shoot. I operated the Sunbounce a couple of times but I also had some time to fire off a couple of shots of Pieter at work with the Leica M4-2, I borrowed from Wilhelm.
Although I know Pieter’s style pretty well, it was still very interesting to see how he gets those pictures. The other thing that’s always interesting is to see how other photographers interact with their clients. You can’t just copy someone else but there are always a couple of things that are worth trying out to incorporate in your own style.
So what did I learn? No big secrets but the way Pieter directs and poses his subjects is phenomenal. I also really like how he frees his mind and back by working mainly with one camera, one lens and natural light. That might give him less technical options but also lets him work fast and concentrate on the subject.
Assisting fellow photographers benefits both the photographer and the assistant. The assistant learns something and the photographer has an extra pair of hands available. And if he’s lucky he’ll get some very flattering behind-the-scenes pictures when the assistant takes out his Hasselblad and concentrates on the photographer’s best part.
I’m certainly going to assist more in the future. What about you, do you ever assist? What did you learn?
Can I fall in love? Considering my previous post, a title like this could make you think this blog post is about women. Well it’s not but if the newspapers can use misleading headlines, so can I. This is about lenses, the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM in particular. I’ve had it for a couple of years (it’s actually my second one as the first got stolen 13 days after I bought it) and it’s always been my least favorite lens.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great lens: well built, the perfect all-round focal length (on full frame), it’s fast and accurate. It’s good at almost anything … but great at nothing. It just isn’t as edgy, extreme or special than any of my other lenses.
Come to think of it, it’s not that different from falling in love with a woman. You just don’t fall in love with a girl because she’s moderately interesting, slightly intelligent, not ugly and reasonable in everything. You fall in love because you get a kick out of Nobel prize winners or because she makes you laugh every minute (or just because she has the perfect boobs).
But in the end you might be probably better of with that first girl who can be trusted every time. I got a similar feeling with the 24-70. That lens has been my must-have/go-to lens when I need to play it safe. But to see if I can fall in love with it, I’m going to use it more often for a while during those times where I don’t have to play it safe and would normally choose another lens. Yesterday I took it with me on a long Geocaching walk with the kids and some friends.
Because the weather forecast was far from great, I used my bulletproof vintage 1Ds mkII. In combination with the 24-70 that’s a heavy beast to lug around for a long walk during which you need to operate a hand held GPS and a bunch of kids. But I don’t regret it as I’m pretty happy with the souvenirs I was able to make of this great day. I’ll keep committing myself to using the 24-70 more often for some time and I’ll report in later.
I’m so excited, after six months of blood, sweat and tears my Motivational Light DVD is finally available.
Check out the official trailer that Pieter made.
We drove ourselves to exhaustion to get it finished but that’s easily forgotten when I look at the end result. The goal was to make a 90 minute instructional DVD, but we ended up with two and a half hours of video about learning how to light. We also tried to squeeze in as much small practical hints and tips as possible. On top of that, there’s an hour of video about how I post processed a number of pictures I shot for the DVD. And then we still have a long section about gear that we just couldn’t fit into the DVD. We’ll release those videos and some more unused footage soon as free online bonus material.
I’m very curious about your reviews, comments and reactions, so please let me know what you think in the comments.
We also would be very thankful if you would help us to spread the news about Motivational Light.
Here it is, finally, the final part of my 50/50 project. The pictures have been processed for months but I just didn’t find the time to put the last slideshow together.
I must admit that the last two weeks of the project were the hardest, I really had to keep pushing myself to make some pictures and on some days I didn’t produce anything that’s worth keeping really. But then again, that’s probably the most interesting part of the project.
After the last day of the 50/50 project I was relieved that it was over but much to my surprise I didn’t feel like putting away the 50mm lens for 6 months. I use it now much more than before. My 70-200 probably saw most action before, but now the 50 is my most used lens.
I’ve learned so much from this project. If I would put it all on the blog, I’d probably have to rename it to the 50/50 blog. I was also pleasantly surprised that so many people gave feedback and got inspired by the project to start their own personal project. A few people even suggested to make a book out of it and I’m considering to do just that. My idea would be to to show my 50 favorite pictures and tell you 50 things I’ve learned. Let me know if you would consider buying a decent priced (e-)book with that kind of content.
Here are the pictures from the Calumet / Sunbounce workshop in Antwerp. The day started with cold and rain but after lunch the skies cleared up and we even got some sun. It seems a bit silly to start my demonstration with the words “imagine there’s no good light” when you have this great low standing sun projecting the finest orange glow on our model. But because in our country a wedding photographer more often than not has to deal with less then ideal light. So I wanted to show in my short live shooting demo how to MAKE beautiful natural looking sunlight. So we moved into the shadow.
Off-camera flash speedlights are a good match for photographers who have to work without assistants, under time pressure and on a tight schedule in situations they don’t control. I think that’s pretty much the definition of a wedding photographer. Direct bare flash would be the easiest to use but it’s often way too harsh. Umbrella’s and small softboxes make the light softer and more pleasing but to me they often look just a bit too perfect. That’s why in those circumstances I often bounce the flash into a reflector. This creates the soft light of a bigger lightsource but it still allows the light to influence and be influenced by external factors. The catchlights also look more natural.
For these pictures we used a Sunbounce Mini reflector as this is to me the most versatile size. As you can see you can light a headshot to a 3/4 shot.
I often get the question on which Sunbounce reflector to buy: well, I think the mini (which is not so “mini” by the way) is a good choice for most photographers. I’d buy it with the zebra/white fabric (that’s what we used here). The zebra gently warms the light up without going over the top.
I finished my session with a couple of quick shots without flash. Just the sun as a hair/back light and the Mini reflector to light the face from camera left. Judging by the catchlights we might have used another reflector to fill in the shadow side, but I forgot.
It’s always difficult to get thrown in front of a crowd and perform some tricks but I guess that again is what wedding photography is all about.
For four days I’m being immersed in the magical world of wedding photography workshops. My favorite brand of reflectors California Sunbounce is doing a European workshop tour with the famous wedding photographer Mike Larson. I joined them for a four days and I’m currently writing this blog post from my hotel room in Amsterdam (btw, never every eat at the Golden Tulip hotel in Amsterdam). I’m too tired to write much, so I’m not going to write too much.
On Saturday Calumet hosted a workshop in Antwerp with Mike where Fotofolio and I also gave a little demo of how we use reflectors (pics are coming later). Yesterday Mike and our own Pieter Van Impe, joined forces for an orgasm of wedding photography information during a LIME workshop in “the Barn”. It was nice to welcome lots of new and old friends from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Russia and the USA.
Mike framed by Filip and Sarah during a live engagement shoot:
Mike even took the participants to my back yard for the shoot:
Sunbounce guru Peter Geller is shorter than the models:
Peter documenting the workshop on the left. A reunion of the Blues Brothers on the right:
Mike stresses out the importance of building a friendship with your clients:
Today the circus moved to the Rotterdam in the Netherlands. I gave a little demo of how I use Sunbounce Reflectors in combination with off-camera flash to create natural looking light. The workshop was held in a big studio that’s great for … well … studio photography but doesn’t offer much available light. I only found some small tungsten lights aimed at photographs and used these as an out of focus background. I lit the model with a single speedlight bounced into a Sunbounce Pro Zebra. We also added a silver Mini on the right as fill.
Let’s catch some sleep because tomorrow we have another workshop in Amsterdam.
When I started this personal project, I did expect it would be hard on some days but I didn’t anticipate the difficult days to turn up so soon. The previous week I’ve been to London and visited the traffic control tower but at the moment I’m spending most of my days at home postprocessing, writing, doing paperwork, finishing up projects, … All important stuff but not really visually stimulating. I can hardly take screenshots all day. We also entered the last big phase in the construction works on our house (new roof on the house) which requires me to be home most of the time. There’s a lot to photograph in this daily routine but I start to feel that I did it all. Don’t mistake a “desk period” for a quiet one, lots of deadlines to meet. So it’s not like I have the time to schedule photo trips and TFCD shoots.
It is to be expected that a project like this puts some strain on your daily life and I’m fine with that but not to the point where it disturbs my family life. So sometimes I put the camera away on what is probably the best moment of the day to take pictures.
But you know what, I don’t care. In fact, I’m happy with these difficult days. These are the times when I grow the most as a photographer. I have to improvise, look for another angle on something I’ve shot many times before or go out at 11pm because I haven’t made a decent picture yet that day. I’m perfectly fine with some bad picture days as long as they push me forward as a photographer.
So how is the project going? Let me tell you that on some days it’s hard to keep it up. It’s pretty easy on days that I’m doing interesting stuff and/or have time to go for a mini photowalk. But at the moment I’m spending most of my time behind the computer and I’m so busy that during the day I usually don’t have time to go out and shoot. Those days may not get me the best pictures in this project but are probably the most interesting ones because I have to get really creative to get some decent shots. That’s when I really have to step out of my comfort zone and do stuff I usually don’t do.
I’m really happy (and surprised) that many of you seem to like the project and some get inspired to do their own project but I’m actually not very concerned about the quality of my images like I would in my usual blogging. Being able to mess up creates the freedom that I need to become a better photographer. I don’t put the images online to show off, it is just a way to force myself to keep shooting every day and I secretly hoped it would inspire a couple of people to do a personal project themselves.
I made the picture above during a tour of our new town (well it was new to us almost a year ago). We got the exceptional chance to visit the traffic control tower of Brussels Airport. This picture alone, makes the 50/50 project worth all the time and effort I’m putting into it. This is not just a picture of a kid in a spot with a nice view. This is a PORTRAIT of my son. I admit it almost physically hurts to decide not to take a wide angle and a fisheye knowing that you’ll have a probably once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get that amazing view combined with fantastic architectural lines. But if I had done that (even with the 50mm in my camera bag) I would never have made this image.
To me it’s the best capture of my son’s personality I made in a very long time. So even if I don’t make a decent image during the rest of the project, it exceeded my expectations.
