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

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For more info and purchasing, please visit www.motivationallight.com

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.

And even then, it took Pieter and me many months of hard work to plan, shoot and edit all this together. Right now we are editing like crazy to get the final details right. I’m extremely happy and proud about the way it all comes together in the editing booth. So I’m very excited that it will be available really soon now.

Here’s another sneak peek that will give you an idea of what we got out of our first days of recording.

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We are flooded with questions about the DVD, so let me give you some answers:

- The DVD is in English (or at least my interpretation of English).

- We are still editing but the final result will run somewhere between two and three hours. The biggest part is about lighting but there will be also some sections on gear and postprocessing. We also tried to squeeze in as much small practical tips as possible.

- We’ll offer the DVD as a download. That way you can access your purchase immediately and we avoid having to ask a higher price to cover costs like handling, disks, packaging, shipping, taxes, … We also shot everything in High Definiton and with the download you can enjoy the full quality. For those who want to have a physical disc, we’ll offer a slightly more expensive download + double DVD version. So as long as you have an internet account and a credit card, you can buy it anywhere in the world.

- We still need to finalize some last calculations but the final price for the download version of the DVD will be around 125 EUR / 175 USD

- We are honored that so many of you want to preorder but since you can have immediate access to the download, there’s no need to preorder.

If you have any more questions about the DVD, I’ll be happy to answer them in the comments.

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The idea of doing a DVD has been ripening for about two years now. I didn’t want to start it head over heels. Instead I’ve been writing and rewriting the script many times just to make sure that it’s a useful addition to the lighting videos that are already out there.

Here are already a couple of shots we made for the DVD.

More info will follow soon!

Have a nice weekend!

We started out with a Hensel Expert Pro 500 monobloc with a 150 cm octabox to camera left as the main light. A second Hensel monobloc with a softbox was placed on the opposite side. This second light performs two duties: adding light to the brick wall and taking care of some separation by spilling some light on Lut and the couch.

Here the main light is the Hensel monobloc with a beautydish. A Sunbounce micro-mini below and a pro to camera left, are used as fill light. A second Hensel monobloc with a softbox was placed on the opposite side to get a tiny bit of hair light.

For the last image, we replaced the softbox on the light behind Lut by a standard reflector and a grid. It was pointed to the floor behind Lut to create a streak of light.

I’ll talk about the how and why of the Hensel gear soon, but first I want to do some more testing. I also shot 3 rolls of film on the Hasselblad, if anything decent comes out of it, I’ll post that once I get the films developped.

These are the results from the first roll of film (Ilford HP5 plus 400). I will do some experiments with flash soon, but I wanted to use the limited available light on this grey day. I struggle a lot with the controls of this camera. It’s so different from a DSLR but at the same time it also feels rather natural. I’m sure it will become easier soon but I’m already loving it. The huge square viewfinder, using a handheld lightmeter, focusing manually, having only 12 shots before loading a new roll of film (which takes like half a day for me), … it all helps to photograph in a very different way: slower, with more attention to composition and detail.

Having to wait at least a day for developing the film is annoying and great at the same time. I’m used to the instant feedback of digital but the feeling of anticipation when finally looking at the negatives has it’s charm too.

I’m aware that medium format film should be able to give me some very decent image quality. The problem is that a good scan is pretty expensive. I must say that I was pretty surprised (and not in a positive way) when I found out how much my lab charges for the not impressive 1500 pixel scans of the 2 test rolls I shot last week. So I dug out my old Epson 1240U flatbed scanner and tried to scan the negatives myself. I couldn’t find the MF film holder, so I had to lay the film straight on the glass and that gave me some distortion. I’ll try to find it or improvise something. It’s an old scanner but I found the results to be on par with the low res lab scans. Good enough for internet use for the moment.

I loved it, I really loved it and I was so happy I could photograph the most beautiful woman in the world with it. We shot one more roll of black and white film and one roll of color film. I haven’t scanned them yet but if there are some decent shots there, I’ll show them to you.

For starters there’s the usual work that takes up a considerable amount of time and next to that I’m involved in two big projects. The first one is the studio, I’ve been working my ass off trying to finally get my playground ready. I’m sure it will be a work in progress for the next couple of years but I want it very soon in a state of readiness that allows me to work in it without any limitations. The upstairs part has been usable for a while but as long as there are ongoing construction works in the building, it requires quite a bit of cleaning before I can shoot. And then still, I have to greet everyone with the words “Don’t mind the mess”. And I’m tired of that stuff.

Deadlines in the distant future have never worked for me, I need pressure to be productive, so I set myself some crazy deadlines to finish the studio. In the past few weeks I’ve been working out pretty much every night in the studio. I demolished some old ugly walls and a ceiling, I did a great deal of cleaning and then went on to the finishing touches. The floors upstairs got their final layer of varnish and downstairs we’ve been painting the walls. In the mean time we also filled a container up to the brim with debris from almost a year of construction work. Still to do: a second layer of paint, even out and paint the floor, paint the doors and install the kitchen. And then it’s time to put in furniture, hang prints, … It’s exciting to get have the finish line in sight and luckily I can count on some great friends to help me out.

About two weeks ago (wall demolishing time), Sofie asked me if she could photograph me for a school assignment called photographers in their own environment. I agreed as long as I could play “photographer who demolishes his own environment.”

And then there’s the second big project. During workshops and meetings with photographers I noticed that the technical part of lighting (and using off-camera flash) is something that most people get the hang of pretty quickly. But knowing how to trigger a flash and putting it at the right power setting doesn’t automatically mean you’ll have good light. I see lots of people struggle with the placement of their lights, choosing the right modifiers, … Using light as the very powerful story telling tool it is, seems to be another thing people struggle with. That’s why we decided to record a DVD with the working title “Motivational Light”. There are already some very good How-To video’s on the market, so we will be focusing on the Why-To. It will be the first LIME/Bert Stephani DVD so it’s very exciting to work on.

Here’s an iPhone snap of the cast and crew during a shoot in the forest:

Pieter and I already put a lot of planning, testing and preparation into this project to ensure a quality product. Our first 3 days of recording have been hard work but also lots of fun. We’ll keep you posted. If there’s anything you would like to have explained in this DVD, hit the comments. We can’t guarantee every question will make the DVD, but we’ll try.

This time I was still nervous. Not because she’s even more experienced now or because it was going to be lingerie, but because I didn’t have much of a clue what to shoot. I knew I wanted to work with just one light and a grey backdrop but that was about it. Luckily Peggy came to the rescue with some clever outfits and some amazing poses.

I still feel I’m struggling a bit in the studio. When I play it safe I’m sure I can come up with decent pictures, but I want more than just decent. I’m pretty happy with the results of this session as I think it’s another step into the right direction to develop my own studio style. As usual, your input is very welcome.

I noticed the angle on Kailyka’s legs and I’ve put the small Lumopro on the floor to get another triangular shape on the background. To finish the triangular shape composition, I asked Kailyka to keep her arms like this:

I then played around with the Elinchrom softlighter umbrella box because I haven’t used it very often yet (it came with the Ranger kit). It doesn’t give the same quality of light than the softbox but it’s not bad and just a touch faster to set up.

I feel like I still have a long way to go before I can define my own studio portrait style, but this fun shoot was certainly and interesting experiment. And the thing about experiments is that they’re always useful even if they go terribly wrong.