Camera « Jurgen Doom

Kirstin H.

1 August 2012 om 15:14 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Camera,Photography,Portrait

It has taken us roughly 8 years to see each other again. We studied photography together in South Africa and kept in touch via mail, Skype, etc … but we hadn’t seen each other until I recently had to go to Schotland, where Kirstin happened to stay exactly 10km from where I was staying … such a great coïncidence.

Anyhow, we finally met and had loads to talk about. It was just great to see how one can connect instantly with a soulmate, even after 8 years of not seeing each other.

Of course I had to take the obligatory snap with my camera ….

I profoundly hope it won’t take another 8 years before we see each other again, my dear!

Kirstin H. (on FujiX10)

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Portrait photos for profile image on social media

8 September 2011 om 10:06 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Camera,Flashlight,fotografie,photographer,Photography,Portrait,strobist,Studio

I have recently written a blog post about the quality of profile photographs for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. You can find it here.

Recently I was contacted via the contact page of my website by …. my spouse! She asked me if she could make an appointment for a portrait session in order to get photographs for social media. Since my wife has access to my calender, she proposed a day and time I was available. So there was no possible escape for me … ! Photographing people who are close to you is even more difficult than photographing people who are not in your circle of relatives and friends …

Nonetheless, herewith a selection of images, shot on Nikon D3, 85mm 1.4 at f/4, 1/250. I used 3 flashes (Nikon SB900) using Nikon’s CLS system.

: Portrait and profile photograph for social network sites

: Portrait and profile photo for social media

: Portrait and profile photo for social media

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Model photography – model shoot with Sylviane Alliet part 2.1

24 January 2011 om 11:01 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie advertising,Camera,Commercial,Flashlight,fotografie,Gear,Photography,Portrait,Software

In the previous blog post about the shoot with Sylviane Alliet, I talked about the images we made in the doctor / dentist / assistant / medical sphere.

Because we don’t take pictures with a model and the right attributes every day to (especially in the medical field), we decided to quickly do a few shots of Sylviane against a different background. That way we could get some extra mileage out of the attributes. We did this by simply moving the flashlights to another location (right around the corner from our previous shots), with as a result a set of pictures which breathed a totally different atmosphere.

The pictures were taken with 2 Nikon SB900 flashes in slave mode, triggered by a Nikon SB900 on camera – the Nikon CLS system. One flash was standing outside, behind the door, the other stood between between the photographer and Sylviane, but aimed at a corner in the room. In other words, the light was “bounced” or reflected by the white walls and ceiling, so to get an even lighting over Sylviane.

All photos were taken with a Nikon 85mm prime on f2 (because I simply liked to workon f2. Nah).

The result looks like this (images post-processed in Lightroom 3.3).

Shoot with Sylviane - medical theme

From here on I added some warmth to the image by placing a full cut CTO gel over the outside flash. Hence the impression of sunlight coming through the door and the warm atmosphere.

Shoot with Sylviane - medical theme

Next blog post will be much more “zen” … promised!

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Model photography – shoot with Sylviane – part 2

19 January 2011 om 21:19 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie advertising,Camera,Commercial,Flashlight,Gear,Photography,Portrait

In my previous blog post I talked about the shoot with Sylviane. The purpose of the shoot was to further the portfolio of both Sylviane and me with work that usually doesn’t fit in commercial work.

For the second set of photos, we moved to a dental and medical practice. Well, in our imagination anyway, because in reality it was in Sylviane’s kitchen. We made a series of photos taken in an environment of a dentist, nurse and surgery and the atmosphere had to refer to a doctor / physician.

The photos are all taken with a Nikon D3s, a 50mm and 85mm (both f1.4) and 3Nikon SB900 flash, controlled via the Nikon CLS system (flash on the camera that controls the other flashes). Behind Sylviane you see a white box / cabinet with glassdoors, which could perfectly serve in a medical practice, especially when you photograph them with large aperture. The colors in the photographs are from color filters that are placed over the flash heads.

: model fotografie

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Real estate photography

10 December 2010 om 13:10 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Architecture,Camera,Commercial,Flashlight,Photography,real estate photographer

Real estate photography – or how to use photography to sell your property.

Recently I was commissioned to photograph real estate – a house – in order to use the photographs to sell the house. The brief was easy and simpel: make this house look good on photographs, so we can attract potential buyers.

The owners of the house had tried to photograph their place, but without much satisfaction. Hence their question for professional images.

In order to lift the whole look and feel of the house, I used Nikon SB900 flashes, CTO gels and pocket wizzards (to trigger the flashes).

In the following series of images the difference between the amateur in pro images should be fairly obvious.

Take this shot for example, together with the one following.

With a little help from you friends, this photograph can be changed into something appealing, with loads of warm golden light, a crisp sharp look and verticals that remain, well, vertical …

The entrance to the house looks more or less like this …

… but, with some decent photography and carefull use of flashlights can also look like this

or like this

and the fully equiped kitchen ….

may look more appealing when photographed in another way, like this

or alternatively like this

And yes, the house has a bedroom, but due to the fact that one needs a decent wide angle, the owners didn’t dare to take a photograph. But I did.

The light falling onto the bed is actually flash light, with a CTO gel, coming from outside. Fill in flash was also provided, to lift the general look and feel of the bedroom.

The house was sold within a week at a price higher than the asking price.

Need I say more.

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Using Nikon SB900 speedlights for creative photographic lighting

12 November 2010 om 13:16 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie advertising,Camera,Commercial,Flashlight,Gear,Photography,Sports,Uncategorized,workshop fotografie

As an advertising photographer, creating images for clients that will make their products look good, I try to be creative with my photography and my gear. Let’s look at an example.

Image of a gymnast.

Imagine a huge indoor sports hall. Imagine the yellow/green illumination these sports halls typically have and that cast an “ugly” type of light on the subjects (which you don’t want, you want your subject to look good). Imagine the cluttered background one usually gets in such sport halls, which will destroy the impact of the image ……

Situation - available light.

As a photographer I try to overcome problems – let’ call them challenges – instead of creating them.

When I had to photograph a young sportster, doing all sorts of neck-braking, leg-twisting, arm-bending exercices on a gym device, I had to be creative to get a shot of it that could be used as a double spread in the brochure.

Firstly, I figured I wanted to eliminate the natural lighting of the sports hall. Using a shutter speed of 1/250th at ISO 100 on a Nikon D3x (24Mpix) was good enough at f 4 to eliminate the ambiant light. That means, if you would not use flash, you would end up with a dark (black) image at these settings.

Next step was to bring in the Nikon SB900 speedlights. I used 3 of them. The main flash comes from directly above me (on-axis with the lens) but shot through a softbox in order to soften the light. It provides the main light for the subject, but because we are working very close to the subject and far away from the background, that light doesn’t reach the background, so it remains black (or under exposed).

The last step was to position two SB900 speedlights behind the subject, at either side of the girl, and aimed towards her. Those light provide the rim lighting, which make her stand out from the background even more.

The image was ultimately used as a double spread in the SPORTA brochure as shown above.

All shots were taken on the Nikon D3x, using a 85mm f1.4 lens and using the Nikon CLS lighting system.

Alternative image of the gymnast.

Nikon CLS system is a fantastic system to work on-location. It’s versatile, works well, easy to handle and learn and enables a photographer to be very flexible in his work and quickly adapt to different situations and lighting conditions. I use it all the time in my photography.

If you want to learn it as well, I run workshops on photography and flash photograph (also for users of other brands).

More to come,

Jürgen

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Architectural photography – assignment for CES

29 October 2010 om 14:01 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Architecture,Camera,Commercial,Photography

One of my passions in photography is architectural photography. This shouldn’t come as a big surprise with my background in engineering yet it is not an easy discipline in photography. Architectural photography is a part of photography that is often looked upon as an easy thing to do. There is just the building and the photographer, so take the image and you’re done.

Architectural photography

Not so.

When you want to photograph building, you encounter difficult kind of problems.

The first problem is, or can be, the weather. It is a fact of life that images often just sparkle so much more when you photograph in excellent weather. A sun-lit building is always much more interesting than that same building lit by an overcast sky.

However, the best time to photograph a building – generally spoken – is at dusk or dawn. Just after or before sunrise, a skilled photographer is able to blend artificial light (in and/or outside the building) in such a way that those two light sources match each other well.

architectural photography - matching ambiant light with artificial light

The second problem one can encounter is the problem of having to photograph from a point of view that is too close to the building. That results in a camera that will be tilted in an angle towards the building, but with a detrimental effect to the verticals of the building. By tilting a camera, the verticals of a building will not remain parallell, which results into an image that doesn’t hold.

To remedy this problem, an architectural photographer will always use a perspective control lens (PC lens), enabling the photographer to “tilt-shift” the lens in such a way that the verticals of a building remain vertical.

I haven’t spoken yet about obstacles, such as trees, other buildings, roadworks, even blocked access (fences, guards at gates, etc …..), which are all possible problems an architectural photographer must take into account when preparing for a shoot.

For CES, an engineering firm, I had to photograph a series of buildings of which they had redone most of the HVAC and engineering works. CES wanted images of the building, preferably during daylight. Nonetheless, as a photographer you try to give your client more than they expect, which is what I always try to do.

Herewith two screen shots of their brand new website (created by Jolux Webdesign). All images are shot on a Nikon D3x (24.5Mpix) with a Nikon 24 PC lens or a Nikon 14-24mm wide angle lens.

Architectural photography - website of CES

I would also like to salute CES, who entrusted me with this project. Meanwhile we have established a lasting relationship, which is much more rewarding than any kind of financial reward.

Looking forward to producing more images ….

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The future in photography and video

26 August 2010 om 15:26 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Camera,Gear,Movie

Things change. Gone are the days where we used gelatine based films to recored images or movies. We’ve all gone digital now.

With the arrival of the newest breed digital (still) camera’s such as the Canon 5d MKII and Nikon’s D3s (which I’m using most of the time) we’ve seen a new possibility with these camera’s, which is recording movies.

The biggest advantage of a 5D MK II and a D3s is the availability to record scenes with prime lenses (such as a 50mm f1.4) costing a fraction of the prime lenses of an expensive recording device. More over, the possibility of recording at an ISO rate of, say, 12800, makes it possible to record a movie with continuous, ambiant light without having to use expensive cinématographic lighting.

One of the drawbacks of using a DSLR for video recording is that one cannot view through the view finder as the view is blocked by the mirror when opened. One could look at the display at the back of the camera, but it makes it difficult for the (art) director to look at the frames being recorded, together with the cameraman.

Robert Benson, a USA based photographer (www.robertbenson.com), has come up with a solution for Canon users by using a wireless screen that uses the signal from a transmitter attached to the camera, to view live what’s being recorded.

Benson shows us the invention in this quick You Tube broadcast.

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Brico Cover – Pirate meets Princess meets Photographer

2 August 2010 om 14:49 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Camera,Commercial,Photography,Uncategorized

Photography is an expensive occupation. Children are expensive too. A combination of being a “photographer with children” is hugely expensive ….

But sometimes the two come together and work well for each other. Like that one time when I had to photograph the cover of Brico magazine, a 3-monthly that DIY-hardware store Brico publishes.

The ad-agency asked me if I could help finding children between 5 and 8 for an article about a grandfather who had build a “hut” up in a tree for his grand childrren. Ideally they would be dressed like a pirate, a princess, a “what-have-you” “you-name-it” ….

Myrte, my daughter of 7, just loves getting dressed as a princess and for Johannes, my 5 year old boy, being a pirate comes second nature to him.

And so it happened that they finally figured on the cover of a magazine. Mind you, for Johannes it was already his second appearance on the cover of a magazine. The first time was when he was about 3 months old. But the money I made with that cover has long been blown on nappies, etc …. So it was time to top up on some “money credits” ….

Cover of Brico magazine, featuring my two kids.

This image was photographed on a Nikon D3x and a 24-70mm 2.8, ISO200, F5.6 at 1/100. We used one SB900 speedlight (which we litteraly had to hang in a tree in order to get the right angle), gelled with a full cut CTO gel and complemented the lighting with a golden reflector. The flash was triggered through Nikon’s CLS system.

This image is half of a double spread that ran in the inner pages of the magazine.

So finally I’ve been able to use them to make me some money, instead of costing me money. But hey, that money has already been spent …. on a new princess and pirate outfit!

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Nikon D3x – a closer look

29 March 2010 om 11:38 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Camera,Flashlight,kids,Portrait

In my previous post I published 2 photographs of my kids, to celebrate the arrival of my Nikon D3x. But it is indeed impossible to assess the quality of a camera and/or lens on a tiny image in a blog post. Therefore, I’m herewith posting a 100% zoom of a detail of Myrte’s head.

The image is photographed with a 85mm Tilt/Shift lens, so it’s manual focus. Although I probably would have wanted the eyes to be a little sharper, I think it’s still pretty acceptable considering we’re looking at an image at 100% magnification (which comes down to roughly the size of an A2 for the intire image).

Nonetheless, look at the sharpness and crispness of the image, especially Myrte’s hair and eyebrows. I also don’t notice any color fringing at the edges (also thanks to the great lens used).

100% crop of Myrte's headshot, by Nikon D3x

Needless to say I’m happy with the results and I’m looking forward to the journey with my D3x.

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