group portrait « Jurgen Doom

on how to take a group photograph …

9 March 2011 om 18:03 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Flashlight,Group photograph,Photography,Portrait,Studio

Remember my previous post? I talked about portrait photography for MBS but also mentioned we photographed a the whole team as a group inside the house in which we photographed the individual portraits. Well, I didn’t include the making of the group photographt in the previous post as I wanted to keep it for a seperate post.

The group photograph we took of the staff at MBS was done in a living room. They had seen a group photograph of a father and his 4 sons I did a while ago and they wanted something along those lines for their formal group photograph. Therefore, we set up a mobile studio containing a background system with white background paper and 3 Elinchrome strobes (RX600). I used 1 large Chimera softbox on the strobe facing the group and two gridded strobes aimed at the background in order to illuminate the white background (as to render it as white as possible without blowing it out too much). The grids I used in order to reduce the spill on to the people in the group, coming strait out of the strobes. This is something I wouldn’t need to do in studio, but on location, where space comes at a premium, this was necessary.

You can see part of the setup in this image, which I took as part of my test images to judge the lighting and position of the people in the group.

group photograph

Notice also the white curtain I had to use in order to get the group positioned against a white backdrop. As the group photograph was to be cleaned-up afterwards in post production, it didn’t bother me too much.

So this is what it finally looked like. I positioned myself a bit higher up in order to create more depth in the image, which was liked very much by the group (and myself …). Image photographer on a Nikon D3x. Flashes triggered with Elinchrome Skyport.

group photograph

Group photographs are sometimes a nightmare for photographers, as there are so many things that can go wrong …. but on this one, it was almost plain sailing!

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Corporate portrait photography for MBS

7 March 2011 om 14:52 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie advertising,Commercial,Flashlight,Gear,Photography,Portrait

As a corporate photographer, operating in Belgium and in particular in the Brussels area, I’m often confronted with different types of locations and surrounding in which I have to come up with images. For the Manpower Business Solutions shoot, this was also the case. We had agreed to meet up with the “models” – the staff at MBS – in a house near Overijse in order to create corporate portraits of them that were to be used on their brochures, flyers and advertising material. I would bring all the necessary elements such as backdrops, studio lighting and gear to create the photographs and had asked my make-up artist Ans Brugmans to do the make-up on the models.

But what I hadn’t “budgeted” for was my health. The night before the shoot I became ill, even in such a way that in the morning – the photo shoot was planned in the afternoon – I phoned my colleague Evi and asked her if she could assist me and perhaps take on the shoot herself (with me directing a bit).

Luckily, during the course of the day I recovered somewhat so that I eventually managed to do all the photography myself, but I was more than happy to having Evi, my last-minute assistant, to lug around with gear and stuff …. Hey, that’s called “emancipation” ….

So what we did was basically a few corporate portraits, a group photograph and an outdoor group photograph of the whole team. For the image I took inside, I set up a white studio background and used my studio lighting (Elinchrome RX600) with 2 softboxes and a gridded backlight. For the image outside I only used my Nikon SB900 strobes, triggered by Pocket Wizards. The portraits were photographed on a Nikon D3s, the group shot on a Nikon D3x.

Despite me not being 100% – although I gave it all – we came up with some interesting photographs and I have just been sent the pdf’s of the publication in which the photographs are being used.

Portrait photography for MBS

Portrait photography for MBS

Portrait photography for MBS

The outside group shot looked like this. Because of in-house decisions, the images had to be delivered in black and white (as with the above images).

Portrait photography for MBS

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Corporate photography – or how to make photos to meet your clients needs

4 March 2011 om 14:47 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie advertising,Commercial,corporate photography,Flashlight,photographer,Photography

As a corporate photographer, specialising in business to business photography, you need to be able to produce photographs that meet your clients needs.

In this particular case, the people at bakker asked me to come up with a series of photos for their new website. They had photographs on their old website, but those were stock images bought from an image bank. They wanted the same look and feel of what they had on their old site, but instead of “generic” photos of models, they wanted to use their own people (in fact, the staff and partners).

So what the client basically wanted was to have images that were fairly evenly lit, with relatively clean backgrounds that breath professionalism. All the shots were to be made at their offices in Antwerp.

I had Ans Brugmans with me as my make-up artist and Jasmijn assisted me with the photography and lighting.

During the course of the day, we did about 8 completely different setups, having to change the lighting each and every time. Within each setup there was often room to move around and play with different compositions.

I used my studio lighting (Elinchrom RX600) in conjunction with my small portable Nikon SB900 strobes in order to create the look we wanted. All images are photographed on a Nikon D3s. During the day I only used 2 prime lenses. One was a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens and the other was a Nikon 85mm f/1.4 lens). I prefer to work with prime lenses over zoom lenses because it is sharper, has a higher contrast and is generally much lighter than have zooms. On an assignement like this there is no need to work with zoom lenses as you have both your lighting and setup under control. Framing the image is just a matter of moving forwards or backwards in order to compose your image.

Of course, all images were photographer in the RAW format and post processed through Adobe Lightroom.

The images are now used on their site, which looks like this (at www.bakker.be) and which looks stunning (see screenshots below). Website made by Van Katoen (Damien Dubois).

Corporate photography for bakker.be

Corporate photography for bakker.be

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Cover photograph for Sporta Brochure: which one would you choose? Cover A or cover B?

15 September 2010 om 10:46 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Commercial,Photography,Portrait

As a photographer, trying to satisfy the needs of your clients, it is sometimes a difficult exercise to meet your clients view with your own. However, as a professional photographer, creating images that have a high impact, you want to deliver photographs that your clients can use and not only what you think your client should use.

During the assignment for Sporta – a centre that provides training facilities for all sorts of athletes in varying disciplines – I photographed many setups and situations, one of which we thought would be useful for the cover of the brochure. But when it eventually came down to choosing the cover photograph, it proved to be more difficult than expected.

My opinion was fairly clear from the start on how I saw the cover photograph (but my opinion doesn’t count), but even the art-director’s opinion wasn’t 100% on par with the opinion of the board of directors.

Eventually, the art director came up with 2 versions of the cover, which are listed below.

Which one would you choose and why? Cover A or Cover B?

Please leave your comments in the comment section …

Photo A

Suggestion A for the cover of the Sporta Centrum Brochure.

Cover B

Suggestion B for the cover of the Sporta Centrum Brochure.

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Photography and pregnancy, a match made in heaven!

22 March 2010 om 12:00 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Flashlight,Portrait,Studio

As a photographer, one of the most beautiful things to photograph is a pregnant womam. Woman in itself are already beautiful (man too, but that’s a different story alltogether), but a pregnant woman is a pleasure to photograph and to look at. Most of the times, when pregnancy goes well, these woman are so proud of their little bundle of joy inside their body, that they come accross on photographs in a self-confident way.

It wasn’t any different with this lady, who I photographed in her own house. Photographing a belly on location, that is in the comfort and cosyness of someone’s own house, holds many advantages. The pregnant lady doesn’t have to move herself towards a photo studio, but she can stay in a well-known environment, which ultimately helps to gain even more confidence to pose for photographs. In order to explore the through possibilities of pregnancy photography, often people want photographs of the naked body (which, indeed, shows the changing outlines of the body very well). But as you will see in the photographs below, it doesn’t always have to be naked.

With the help of a black background, which I brought along, and a few of-camera reportage flashes (type Nikon SB900) I created different images. In order to respect the privacy of everyone involved, I can only show a few images, but they serve to prove my point. Woman are beautiful, pregnant woman are stunning!

Beautiful shape of a lady's torso.

Outline of the beautifully shaped belly

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Billboard photo

3 February 2010 om 15:23 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Commercial,Flashlight,Portrait

Below is my first billboard-size photograph. It was commissioned by LUKoil.

Lukoil - billboard

The image was taken on a rainy and windy winter day, just before dawn. In order to get a vibrant photograph, I photographed the model with 2 speedlights (Nikon SB900). On of them was gelled with a full cut CTO gel.

The image was part of a series of images for the rebranding of LUKoil. Herewith the original image.

Lukoil - billboard

Het beeld werd gemaakt in opdracht van LUKoil, ongeveer een jaar geleden. Het was een typische sombere regenachtige winterdag, maar toch moesten we het beeld schieten. De bevallige jongedame had nog meegedaan aan misverkiezingen en wist nogal goed hoe zich te gedragen. De ambitieuze fotograaf had al meerdere shoots gedaan bij somber weer en wist hoe er toch wat kleur in te steken. LUKoil wist ten slotte het beeld mooi te vergroten en op “billboard” size affiches te verspreiden over ons land.

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Bedrijfsfotografie – Corporate photography

27 November 2009 om 12:47 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Commercial,Portrait

– English below – Bedrijfsfotografie voor een freelance fotograaf is zo belangrijk als bloem voor een bakker. Belangrijk dus, en interessant. Met mijn verleden als ingenieur vind ik het steevast interessant om in verschillende bedrijven te komen om te zien waar men zoal mee bezig is.

Het feit dat je dan bovendien in de meest moeilijke – lees: niet ideale – omstandigheden op heel korte termijn toch een goed en interessant beeld moet zien te maken, vergroot alleen maar de uitdaging.

Onderstaande serie beelden illustreren een beetje de gedachtengang – en opbouw – van een beeld. Met andere woorden, hoe een beeld tot stand kan komen.

De opdracht bestond erin om een foto te maken van een onderzoeker, zowel een portretje dat voor (en door) het magazine zou gedetoureerd worden alsook van het product waarmee de onderzoeker bezig is.

Het eerste deel, namelijk het portretje tegen een witte achtergrond, is een klassieker. Mbv 2 reportageflitsen, een paraplu en een paar Pocket Wizards kan je heel snel een foto maken tegen een witte muur, een deur, etc ….. zelfs in een lokaal dat hooguit een paar vierkante meter groot is (ok, ik overdrijf een beetje, maar het VOELT alsof het een paar vierkante meter groot is). Onderstaand portret werd gemaakt met een flits door een paraplu, links van de camera, en een flitslichtje tegen de witte deur. Dat lichtje doet ook dienst als “haarlichtje”. De deur wordt door het reclamebureau weg geknipt, zodat enkel het portret over blijft.

Hier de setup, met links bovenaan een stukje van de paraplu en rechts buiten beeld de tweede flits.

corporate photography, bedrijfs fotografie

Met het portretje als resultaat.

portrait photographe, portret

Daarna moest een foto gemaakt worden van een uitvinding van deze man, en hij toonde me een foto op zijn computer waar – tegen een blauwe achtergrond – een gelijkaardig onderwerp gefotografeerd was. Hij vond evenwel dat zoiets waarschijnlijk niet mogelijk was om dat daar ter plaatse te doen (het beeld was inderdaad in een studio omgeving opgenomen) maar dat het gewoon als voorbeeld diende om een idee te geven van hoe zijn uitvinding in beeld kan gebracht worden.

De volgende 10 minuten hebben we dit uit onze camera geschud (alles in het zelfde kantoortje als waar het portret gemaakt werd):

a. zoek achtergrond (deur) en test even het camera standpunt ifv de achtergrond en onderwerp

agc-groupshot-0139

b. verander de achtergrond de gewenste kleur (in dit geval blauw) en dit mbv een flits en blauwfilter

agc-groupshot-01601

c. belicht je voorgrond en neem de foto van het onderwerp ….

benoit-domercq-0103-1

verbaas de onderzoeker met een beeld dat merkwaardig sterk lijkt op het beeld dat hij op zijn scherm toonde …

Uiteindelijk heb ik nog een paar varianten op het thema gemaakt, zodat de designer en layouter van het magazine wat ruimte hadden om mee te spelen ….

benoit-domercq-0105

zowel met als zonder blauwe achtergrond …. wat gewoon neerkomt op flitsje aan of uitschakelen.

benoit-domercq-0100

benoit-domercq-0097

et voila!

Altijd leuk als je iets kan bieden dat ze niet verwachten.

Corporate photography is an important aspect in photography for a freelance photographer. I always find it interesting to find out what people drive and what they do for a living. Maybe my engineering background has something to do with it.

Take, for instance, this researcher. I was comissioned to photograph a researcher in his office. The ad agency needed a straightforward portrait against a white backgroud, so he could easily be “clipped out”. Secondly, they wanted a photograph of the researcher with his invention.

For the portrait I used a white door and a two-light setup. Camera left a strobe through an umbrella, on camera right a separation/hair light.

For the product shot, I tried to accomodate him by emulating an example he had shown me on his computer, which was an image of a similar product, photographed against a blue background.

Not thinking I would be able to come even close to what he wanted, I set up a three-strobe lighting setup. One blue-gelled strobe lit up the background, while two other strobes where used to light the subject. The result was a series of photographs, taken in a timeframe of about 10 minutes, of the subject and his invention, with both blue and black backgrounds – which gives the designer extra room to play with.

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Studio photoshoot – Large group portrait

14 September 2009 om 15:59 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Commercial,Portrait,Studio

I was recently contacted by a family who asked me if they could have their portraits taken, as well as a group photograph, in order to have a beautiful surprise gift for their mums’ 50th birthday. They would be 5, 4 sons and the father.

They wanted a group photograph in the studio, against a white background and they wanted to dress up for the occasion.

Having a rather small home studio, which has served me well so far, I was a little tense and I was prepared to photograph every family member on his own in order to photoshop them all into one image. However, always being up for a challange, I tried to photograph them together in one shot.

When they arrived at the studio, they all got dressed into these very smart dresses (some of them had difficulties getting into their trousers, but eventually every one managed to get fully dressed).

I managed to position them in such a way that they looked well, that the image was interesting to look at and that everyone somewhat showed his personality. Than, the biggest problem with such a group shot lies in lighting them all evenly, which, in a small studio, is not easy. In order to do so I used only one studio light, placed behind a huge softbox that I created out of translucent material. The total area of this material is about 4 square meter (roughly 6 foot by 6 foot). In doing so, I created a large lightsource, which results in an even illumination of the subject whilst still creating enough contrast.

The background was lit by a background reflector, so I used 2 studio lights in total. This is the result, which finally got printed on canvas at 1m by 1.50m.

Studio shoot

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