Do you remember Pieter, that crazy little fat dwarf that used to be my sidekick on the LIME podcast? Well, he’s still little and crazier than ever but not that fat anymore. After a year of training, he managed to finish the Stockholm Marathon a couple of weeks ago. He describes his adventures on Run Pieter Run btw. And now – I told you he was crazier than ever – he started training for a triathlon.

A while ago, I blogged about my new personal project about water. Thanks to your input, I got plenty of interesting potential subjects. But before I actually start the project, I need to figure out some kind of style that I can keep fairly consistent. One thing I miss to guarantee that, is experience with shooting in the water and the lack of practice with my underwater gear. To partly solve that, I asked Pieter if he would let me shoot him during an open water swim training.

Pieter in his two sizes too small wetsuit and me with wetsuit, mask, fins and an underwater camera, might have looked slightly out of place at a swimming spot full of skinny teenagers in swimming shorts and bikini’s. But hey don’t we always? We started out with some simple portraits and during our scientific expedition up the river, I even shot a picture of a flower that we’ve just discovered. We’re not sure yet, but we are thinking of calling it a “water lily”.

I even tried making some grungy riverscapes.

I realize that for this project to work, I need to be able to do it with relatively little gear. I might be using big strobes and assistants for some of the shots, but I also need to be able to pull it of while traveling light. Therefor I really wanted to see what can be done with just the E-PL1 and one underwater flash. I used an Inon S2000 flash on a flexible arm attached to the Olympus housing. I’ll probably do a more technical post about the gear once I got a bit more experience with it. But the most important thing is that it’s a small, light and flexible setup that allows me to work alone, and move easily without risking my life and/or lots of money.

My goal was to capture Pieter’s swimming in action:

But then better … from a more creative angle:

Spending the better part of two hours swimming around in a river, really made me appreciate the magic of swimming surrounded by nature. So I decided to include more of the environment in the picture.

I’m pretty happy with the results and I’m pretty confident that I could make a decent shot in most circumstances. It’s just that I don’t know WHAT KIND of decent shot. While Pieter’s goal is to get fit and have the right technique to finish a triathlon, mine is to get to the point that I can virtually guarantee that I can make the H2O shot I had in my head. I guess we both have a lot of work ahead.

4 DAY+ MASTERCLASS

This full immersion 4 day+ photography boot camp will rock your world and challenge you like you’ve never been challenged before. It’s about technique, lighting, posing, business, post processing but it’s also about identity, ideas and vision. You’ll get to experience all this in the great atmosphere of a small group (maximum 6 participants), creative subjects and great food & drinks.

We have prepared a great mix of lectures, practice sessions, product presentations and post-processing sessions. At the same time, we have build in the flexibility to adapt the schedule to the needs of the group. Thanks to California Sunbounce and Servix & Partners, we have a whole range of toys at our disposal for our experiments: lights, modifiers, reflectors, medium format camera, …

Lunches on Monday and Tuesday are included. The two days we are on location, we’ll make sure you can get lunch at very good rates. Drinks are on me when we are in The Barn. The welcome dinner and diner on Tuesday are also included in the workshop fee.

SCHEDULE
We’ll start this masterclass with a welcome dinner at the studio on Sunday night, so we can all meet and talk about what you can expect in the following days.

Monday is safe portrait day. I strongly believe that a safe portrait is the perfect starting point for a creative photoshoot. It keeps your clients happy, is het perfect insurance for anything that can go wrong and it builds confidence for both the subject and the photographer. We’ll teach you bulletproof lighting techniques, tricks to loosen up nervous subjects, posing tips and much more. This day will give you a toolbox of techniques to get the job done even in the most extreme situations.

Tuesday will be all about lighting. We’ll spent most of the time in the studio to create both natural looking images and extreme lighting setups. At night we’ll have a nice dinner together followed by a lecture about the business of photography with some surprise guests.

On Wednesday we’ll be working on location. The morning will be dedicated to run-and-gun techniques that will allow you to make spectacular pictures in no time with a minimum of gear. In the afternoon, we’ll take “spectacular” to a new level for a big and crazy shoot. We’ll all have to work together to pull this one off.

Thursday morning is special request time. If there’s anything we’ve missed during the previous days or that isn’t clear, we’ll handle it. In the afternoon, you will be presented with a great subject and a challenging assignment. Before we say goodbye, we’ll do a last image review / cocktail hour.

FOR WHO
his masterclass is not for the faint at heart. This is only for passionate photographers who are prepared to work hard to take their work to the next level. If you really push yourself you might even take it to the level beyond the next. We expect a good basic knowledge of photography, your gear and your post processing software.

WHAT TO BRING
A bag filled with a DSLR, some lenses and a laptop are all you really need but if you want to bring lighting equipment or your large format printer, we won’t stop you.

PRACTICAL
Location: The Barn, Dijkstraat 42, 1820 Steenokkerzeel BELGIUM
Number of participants: max 6
Language: English (unless all the students speak Dutch)
Price: 910 EUR excl. VAT (1101,10 EUR incl. VAT)
Workshop fee includes teaching, model fees, equipment rentals, 2 lunches, 2 dinners, drinks at The Barn

DATES AND BOOKINGS
No dates set at the moment. Contact us if you would like to book this workshop.

BIG LIGHTS ON LOCATION WORKSHOP

Get your hands on some of the best battery powered studio equipment on the market for a full day of hands-on learning. Discover the power of big lights on location in a small group of maximum four participants.
If you need power and light quality, there’s no substitute for big lights. Rugged, compact battery powered studio strobes combine these qualities with portability and a high-end image. In this workshop you will learn how to improve your photography by using the big guns.

THE DAY
We will start the day with a tour of the gear and a discussion on how you can benefit from implementing big lights in your shooting style and workflow. Thanks to the support of Servix & Partners and California Sunbounce, you’ll get the chance to try out Elinchrom portable units with all kinds of modifiers like softboxes, reflectors, grids, ring flash and Sunbounce reflectors.
After a tasty lunch, we’ll start working on a couple of assignments that will push your creative and technical knowledge to a higher level under the Bert’s guidance. To end the day, we’ll break out the beers and discuss the pictures you’ve made.

FOR WHO
This workshop is targeted towards serious photographers who know the basics about lighting and want to learn more about using big lights on location.

WHAT TO BRING
You basically only need a DSLR and a lens. If you have your own big light(s), feel free to bring them.

PRACTICAL
Location: The Barn, Dijkstraat 42, 1820 Steenokkerzeel
Time: 9h30 to 17h (I’m notorious for going over time)
Language: English (unless all the students speak Dutch)
Number of participants: max 4
Price: 245 EUR excl. VAT (296,45 EUR incl. VAT)
Workshop fee includes teaching, model fee and a tasty bread lunch

DATES AND BOOKINGS
- Thursday March 22 : book your spot (4 spots available)

In this fully packed hands-on one day workshop, Bert will teach you the crucial lighting techniques to create stunning portraits anytime, anywhere. In a small group of maximum four participants, you can be sure of a very personal learning experience and a fun atmosphere

THE DAY
We’ll start the day with a lesson in choosing the right gear for the job and then we’ll proceed to an in-depth study of the most important lighting setups. Great light is all about subtlety, so during a number of exercises we’ll pay a lot attention to the fine art of flash placement, feathering, choosing the right modifiers and blending flash with the available light.
After a tasty lunch (included), Bert will present you with some lighting challenges and assist you on bringing them to a visually pleasing end. We will get you a great subject to shoot some pictures for your portfolio. We’ll end the day by discussing our images over a couple of beers.

WHAT TO BRING
You basically only need a DSLR and a lens. If you want to bring your own speedlights, triggers, … feel free to do so.
Thanks to the support of Servix & Partners and California Sunbounce, you’ll be able to play around with lots of great toys from Pocketwizard, Manfrotto, Lastolite, Chimera, Elinchrom, Sunbounce, …

PRACTICAL
Location: The Barn, Dijkstraat 42, 1820 Steenokkerzeel
Time: 9h30 to 17h (I’m notorious for going over time)
Number of participants: max 4
Language: English (unless all the students speak Dutch)
Price: 245 EUR excl. VAT (296,45 EUR incl. VAT)
Workshop fee includes teaching and a tasty bread lunch

DATES AND BOOKINGS
- Sunday June 10 : book your spot (4 spots available)

more dates will be announced later

This year I shot more communion sessions than I usually do. The fact that my own son did his communion this year had probably something to do with that. With girls, these kind of assignments are usually easy. At that age most of them love to pose and be a star in their own pictures. With boys however things are a bit different. At eight years old most of them really start thinking that posing in nice clothes isn’t really cool.

I always adapt my gear needs to the subject and the circumstances trying to find a balance between having enough technical options and avoid having too much gear that can disturb the flow of a shoot. Sometimes that means giving up some technical options to ensure good interaction, certainly if the attention span of your subject is pretty short.

Here are some of the communion pics of Kobe. I’ve shot all the images in 15 minutes around my house. Maya assisted me by preventing my light stand from getting blown over by the wind.

So what gear did I use?

I shot everything with the 5D mkII and the 70-200 2.8 L IS. This camera keeps giving me great image quality and the 70-200 is the perfect portrait companion. Thanks to the long and fast lens, I get good backgrounds pretty much everywhere. The fast glass allows me to throw the background out of focus and thanks to the narrow angle of a long lens, I can find many different backgrounds in one spot by just moving my camera a couple degrees. When slightly overexposed I find the 70-200 gives me nice creamy skintones while keeping the facial features sharp.

Lighting wise I took a single 580EX II with an umbrella, mounted on a lightstand. It’s small, light and gives me lots of options if I can combine it with available light. I can use it without an umbrella to create a sunny hair light or use it as a soft main lightsource.

The 580EX II is triggered by a Pocketwizard TT5 with a TT1 and AC3 zone-controller on top of my camera. Although the TTL works pretty well in these circumstances I shoot mostly full manual on my camera and flash for ultimate control over my exposures. After lots of practice I’m pretty good at guessing aperture, shutterspeed, iso and flash power, so I don’t loose any time with it. By shooting full manual the exposures are also consistent which cuts down a lot of time in post processing. The nice thing about the TT5/TT1 combo is that I can control everything from the camera and I don’t have to worry about max sync speed, as the pocketwizards will automatically switch to high speed sync when I go over my max sync speed.

It’s usually not hard to find some soft ambient light if you know where to look. It’s way harder to find soft light with the RIGHT DIRECTION. On overcast days like here, the biggest amount of light comes from straight above which puts the eyes in the shadow and creates shadows under the nose and chin. They might be less ugly than with hard light from above but they still are not very flattering. I often alter the direction of the light by blocking the light that comes from above. It’s simple but not always practical. Another option, and the one I used here, is to use a flash to give the light some direction. The first picture below is takes with only ambient light. For the second picture, I added a speedlight, to camera left.

As you can see from the un-flashed picture, I’m only shooting the ambient light slightly under exposed, probably not even a full stop. By adding a flash, slightly above the ambient light levels, you maintain the soft light feel of the overcast sky but you add direction to the light creating more pleasing shadows and sparkles in the eyes.

This might not be a spectacular dramatic technique but it helps to keep a rather natural soft feel to the portraits.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know I’ve been flirting a bit with digital medium format. I’m completely convinced about MF when it comes to image quality but I still have my doubts about the ease of use of most MF systems. I haven’t checked them all out yet, so when the guys from Servix offered me to test out the Mamiya DM28 system, I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t have the time to set up a special shoot like I did with the Pentax 645D but I had a communion shoot coming up and Sam and her mom said it was ok to shoot some extra pictures with the Mamiya.

Communion shoots might not be what medium format manufacturers have in mind when they design their cameras but I think they better should if they want to reach the younger generation of photographers. I don’t shoot that many communion sessions and I don’t think MF is required for these shoots. But this kind of work requires the same speed, portability and flexibility as a big chunk of my commercial portrait work. Locations and time doesn’t always allow to shoot tethered to a computer, our subjects don’t always stand perfectly still and often there are no assistants around to carry all the gear.

Working with the Mamiya and the DM28 digital back is pretty straightforward. All buttons and menus are clear and usually easily accessible. Although the camera and the back work together well, this is a modular system and I found it sometimes a bit cumbersome to change the iso on the touch screen on the back instead of having a dedicated button on the camera. The camera + back + 80mm 2.8 Schneider lens, isn’t a featherweight but it sits well in my hands and I wouldn’t mind lugging this camera around all day.

The LCD screen was a bit of a disappointment. The touchscreen interface works rather well but the resolution and quality of the screen are simply way to low to judge your images. I prefer to shoot tethered most of the time but sometimes it’s just not possible or handy. And in those cases I want a decent LCD on the back of the camera.

On a brighter note, the auto focus felt pretty snappy even in challenging lighting conditions. I also never felt like the camera slowed me down in any way.

I can’t compare the image quality with other MF systems but up to iso 400/800 it’s certainly a step up from a full frame DSLR. Especially the larger dynamic range is very interesting. I probably didn’t even got the most out of the files since it was the first time I used the Capture One software.

I’ve only shot for 20 minutes or so with this camera, so I haven’t used it enough to come to any definitive conclusions. For now I’d say that the Mamiya certainly seems to be a good option for portrait/commercial photographers who want to get an improved image quality for a decent price.

I’ll be probably using the Mamiya more extensively on a bigger shoot soon, so hopefully that will allow me to give you some more hands-on info. In the near future, I’ll also be testing some toys from Phase One.

No matter how much I learn about lighting and how much gear I buy, I’m still a big fan of the simple beautiful soft light of a big window. One day, if finances allow I’ll have one installed in my studio. In the mean time, my friends at Servix and Partners suggested I’d give the Lastolite HiLite Background a try as an always available big window.

The HiLite is developed to be a self standing white background that is lit with one or more strobes from within. It’s designed as a simple and fast solution to produce an even white background on events and stuff but I immediately saw it as a giant softbox. I’ve always likes extreme lenses, lights, and modifiers so I went all out and got the biggest HiLite, which is 2,50m by 2,15m. They come in four sizes. Coming from the company that have turned collapsible reflectors into an art-form, it’s no surprise that this huge HiLite folds down to a circle with a diameter of about 1 meter. It’s incredibly easy to setup and pack down again. See how big it is:

I powered the HiLite with a single Elinchrom 300RX strobe. I’ll blog about my new Elinchrom equipment soon. For now, let’s just say that I love it and that the guys from Servix & Partners were extremely helpful and knowledgeable when choosing the right equipment to turn The Barn into a full blown rental studio. The HiLite is equipped with zippers on both sides, so you can put a strobe on each side. Two strobes will definitely be better if you want to use the HiLite as an even white background. But I found that the HiLite does a really good job in evening out the light from a single strobe too. Despite the huge large source and the rather low powered strobe, I had no problem to shoot at small apertures and the Elinchrom wasn’t even at full power. My guess is that you could even power it with a Speedlight (or maybe two).

Here’s the Elinchrom 300RX in the HiLite:

I tend to use this kind of very soft light mostly for female subjects but when Stijn volunteered to model for a test shoot, I figured, why not try it on a male subject? Here are a couple of the shots we did:

This one is done with the HiLite only inches behind Stijn and a silver California Sunbounce Mini above the camera as fill. When I shoot on white, I usually don’t let the background light blend in with the exposure of the subject but I found it pretty cool here.

We then started to use the HiLite as the main light and added another Elinchrom monobloc with a Maxi Spot reflector behind Stijn. Here’s how the setup looked (all setup pics by Ioannis, who happened to drop by and helped us out):

I really enjoyed the freedom of working with such a big light source. It was more like working with natural light, where you change the position of your subject rather than changing the light source. It feels more natural and you don’t keep breaking the connection with your subject every time you need to move a light. Such a big light is also very forgiving when it comes to position and exposure.

Here are some more pics:

The HiLite is a big, soft light source just like my shower curtain setup but the light seems more “marinated” by bouncing around inside this big box. Sure, the HiLite is way more expensive than a shower curtain but I’ve got a medium size softbox that costs more.

Conclusion: I still have a lot of experimenting to do with the HiLite but I already know that it’s going to be one of my goto-modifiers from now on.

Things have been rather quiet on my blog because it’s been busy around here with getting the Barn ready to rent out, commercial work and shooting communion sessions. I don’t know if it’s done in other parts of the world but here in Belgium, communions are one of the only occasions where many people want to get pictures of their kids taken by a professional photographer. It’s not my core business but I see it as a service to many of the clients who gave me their trust to photograph their small children when I just started out.

I like to pack extremely light and keep my gear very simple for theses sessions because time and budget are usually limited and also because I like to focus on the kid instead of on the gear. I bring lots of lenses and lights, but usually they stay in my car except for the 5D mk2 with the 70-200, a light stand with umbrella, a 580EX2 flash and my TTL pocketwizards (which I still use mostly on manual). I’m always on the lookout for little things that make my life easier, my workflow faster and in the end, get me better pictures. When I heard about the Frio coldshoe, it seemed like it could be one of those things.

The Frio is not a revolutionary device, it’s a coldshoe for mounting a small flash on a light stand (or tripod, gorillapod, clamp, …). I have plenty of little gadgets that do this, so normally I wouldn’t even bother to look at it. But it comes from the same people that came up with the Orbis Flash ring light adapter for speedlights and I know they got their act together. That’s why I decided to take the Frio for a test drive during some fast paced communion shoots.

The biggest difference with the traditional cold shoe designs is that the Frio doesn’t use any sort of screw to lock the flash onto the cold shoe. You basically slide it in and it “clicks” into place. To release it, you simply push on the lever and slide the flash out. The Frio is made from what appears to be very sturdy plastic and there’s no chance that your expensive flash will fall out of the shoe.

We’ve been blessed with amazing weather and light these past few weeks in Belgium so I’ve shot most communion sessions with just available light (hey, I sometimes do that). But sometimes you just want to quickly set up a flash like in the picture below. The sun back lights the boy and I used a speedlight with an umbrella (camera right) to get the light on the face right.

Could I’ve done that shoot without the Frio? Sure! But sometimes it’s those few extra seconds or that little extra convenience that make our job more enjoyable. I keep my 580 EX2′s mounted on Pocketwizard TT5′s in my bag. Until recently I just screwed the TT5 straight onto the swivel adapter when I got to the location. This doesn’t take much time but sliding the TT5/580EX2 combo onto the Frio is just a touch more convenient. My Frio’s are here to stay.

I got lots of reactions on my first and second 70 EUR Studio post, and even more on Facebook. I also felt like exploring this idea a bit more and arranged a second shoot (in the mean time I did a third one too). This time we kept the video camera rolling (thanks Steve) to give you an idea of what equipment I got for 70 EUR and how I used it. The beautiful and fun Stefanie was brave enough to be part of the experiment.

Without further ado, here’s the video:

View on YouTube

Let’s break it down a little more:

LIGHTS – a double halogen work light (2x350W): This throws out a lot of light at first sight, but when you diffuse it, there’s not much left. You can still shoot handheld but then you’ll have to shoot at iso 800-1600 to avoid camera shake. On the 5D mkII these iso’s show very little noise, so I don’t hesitate to use them. I shot most of the soft light pictures on a tripod at 200 iso and around 1/10th of a second. I would normally never have done that but I found out that it’s perfectly possible to get a good keeper rate when the model, sits down and doesn’t have Parkinson. We played with very small subtle movements because I think they can often make a picture more “real”. That organic feel is exactly what I was looking for because I found my studio pictures where always to artificial.

The work lights come with some downsides too. For a start these things get incredibly hot. You really have to watch out if you want to work with them. When I just started experimenting with artificial light, I used some of these too and managed to let them perform double duty: making light and acting as a smoke machine by setting the diffuser on fire. An ear drum piercing fire alarm, a burned carpet and a scared model later, I decided to buy a couple of flashes instead.

The stand that comes with the lights isn’t exactly as well build and stable as a nice Manfrotto stand. And it doesn’t go up very high so I had to improvise platforms to raise it above eye-level.

In time, I might replace the work lights with some really nice photo/video lights. But apart from being safer, easier to handle and better looking, light is just light.

Diffuser/Scrim – 2 White Shower Curtains: Many people who’ve been to my workshops, know that I always carry a plastic shower curtain in my lighting kit. It has come in handy numerous times as a diffuser, background and picnic blanket. These things are dirt cheap (10EUR for a 2×2 meter light modifier), light and pack very small. I usually clamp or gaffer tape the shower screen to whatever I can find. For this shoot I taped them to my background support system. I guess you could also make some kind of frame for them.

Just like the lights, there are commercial alternatives on the market for the shower curtain diffuser. In fact I have some of them because they handle well and look more professional. But if budget is tight, a shower screen or white bed sheet will get the job done just as well.

Background – 2 textured rough blankets: I like texture in the background, often it looks even better out of focus. When I work on location it’s usually pretty easy to find a textured background but in the studio you have to supply it yourself. I keep some old doors with rust and chipped paint in the studio to be used as a background but it’s not always easy to handle these heavy things. I also wanted to have something lighter that I could use in different ways. When I went buying the lights and shower curtains in the local DIY store, I saw these blankets, and knew immediately that they would be great backgrounds. The rough texture will create interesting highlights and shadows when light strikes the blanket from an angle.

These things are rather small, so I’m thinking about buying some more and stitching them together.

After having seen the video, I’m sure at least half of you are thinking: “Fuck the light, when is he going to tell more about that wireless tethering to the iPad?”
Well … I’ll save that for a future blog post. I first need to go over the hard light pictures.

The two pictures are above where the result of a happy accident. During a break, Stefanie was working on her tan by standing close to the lights. The light looked quite nice even though it was hard and coming from below eye-level. So we started playing with it.

It’s got that timeless, glamorous Hollywood look from the 40′s and 50′s (and even earlier). There are a couple of reasons why this hard light works. First of all, Stefanie has a great bone structure and smooth skin. It’s not impossible to make hard light work with less good looking people, but it sure is hard work.

The second reason is that the hard light, isn’t actually that hard. A work light is a lot bigger than a bare speedlight. If you place the light source meters away from the subject there won’t be much of a difference but when used up close the relative size of a work light is a lot bigger then a small flash, so it gives you softer light.

And then the light becomes even softer because it’s a DOUBLE light. This off-course doubles the size of the light source. And because the two lights are slightly apart one will fill in some of the shadows that the other creates and vice-versa. This is much like those classic Hollywood pictures. In the days of slow film and not-so-powerful lights, they didn’t use much diffusers. Instead they used multiple movie lights to create a bigger surface.

I hope you enjoyed the new Confessions video.

A couple of days ago, I showed you the first results of my studio experiment with a 70 EUR setup (lights, modifiers and background). I basically shot most of the pictures with my 5D mkII so I could see the results instantly but I just had to use my old Hasselblad and shoot some film too. It just felt right. In the end I managed to shoot only a couple of rolls of film because we’ve spent quite some time testing the light and finding the right amount of movement or the lack thereof. But I’m pretty pleased with the results.

I tried out some different films, to see which ones would suit the setup best. The next three pictures are shot on Ilford HP5+

This only color picture is shot on Fuji Pro 400H which captured the skin tones surprisingly well.

And the last one was shot on Fuji Neopan. It’s only the second roll of Neopan that I shoot, but I really like it. I’m going to try it a bit more often.

Too bad all the developing, scanning and dust spotting is such a pain in the ass. If it wasn’t for that I would shoot a lot more film.