GT-Photography

Mediterranean colors with Laura

12/07/2009 · 4 Comments

I´m currently swamped with photo shoots, which I had more time to experiment a bit more…but sure I will have now a choice of models to make some new shoots later in the year.  I also have to make time to test some new ideas I have with Gaelle my daughter :-)

Anyway the shoot with Laura was interesting, she never modelled officialy before…but has a very strong interest to become a model and she has been testing some fun shoots with friends.  We didn´t plan any location before hand, but upon arrival we checked what outfits she had…looked around and found immediately an interesting spot ( a blue tower in mosaic ).  It was fun with Laura as with every click she changed facial expression or pose.  Below are the first pictures, more to come later.

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f 6.3    1/160    200mm    ISO100    California sunbounce Gold

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f 5.6    1/250   200mm    ISO100    California sunbounce Gold

Below: different outfit and different location across the harbor

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f 5.6    1/125    46mm    ISO100    California sunbounce Silver

→ 4 CommentsCategories: Model · Sunbounce

Shoot with a Scottish male model Stuart

08/07/2009 · 1 Comment

Stuart arrived recently at the Costa Blanca and did some modelling before but not in Spain yet.  So perfect place for him to add some additional portfolio pictures.  In posting below you have seen a teaser…. just finished post processing.  Below a selection of some pictures I like.

Went out of my safe zone for the pic below, tried a different angle and did my post processing a bit different than usual.  Sun was coming from left behind model.  Put a flash on the right of the model at the same angel of the sun

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f6.3    1/160    24mm    ISO 100

To give this picture something different, I put the saturation and the luminance of the blue higher in the post processing.  Used California Sunbounce Silver side.

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f8    1/250    50mm    ISO 100

Picture below slightly desaturated.  Used California Sunbounce Silver side.

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f7.1    1/180    44mm    ISO 100

→ 1 CommentCategories: Model · Sunbounce · natural light

Male photo shoot….teaser

29/06/2009 · Leave a Comment

The last 2 months I had plenty of female photo shoots….couldn´t find any interested male of boys, but now they are all coming together.  Last week I had 2 young male models and 2 others this week.  A bit different of female, had to step away from soft colors, flowers, etc… and more lloking into metal, concrete, etc. as a background.

The first male model had a little bit of experience, so that was good for me.  He is from Scotland but lived around the world and settled down since a couple of months in Spain.  Below is a picture I like, of Stuart ( more to come), the shoot went well, but couldn´t use the California sunbounce as strong winds at the coast.  So I used  for several pictures a flash SB 600, put on the floor lighting up….didn´t want to have that soft light of an umbrella.  The below picture is just natural light, no flash and no sunbounce, sun coming from right behind…it was a bit searching to make sure the body and face was still well exposed.

Stuart J 2523 web

f 6.3    1/160    65mm    Iso 100

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Just a snapshot..

16/06/2009 · 1 Comment

Have not been able to do any shoots in June so far, too busy with my business…as you know photography is my passion and wish I could spend more time on it.  But from now on have many shoots already planned with models, so time to take out my gear again after 3 weeks of silence.  Dusting off :-) and went walking on the golf course, with my daughter Gaelle.  Just took a couple of snap shots very quickly, and gaelle just natural not modelling or no make up.  Did not even use any reflector.  Below is one picture.   Be back soon, as this week 2 shoots planned and next week another 2…and in the meantime it´s here over 30 degrees, so will have to shoot after 5.00 pm.

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f5.3    1/15    95mm    ISO 100

→ 1 CommentCategories: Gaelle · natural light

Interesting shoot with Charlotte

03/05/2009 · 1 Comment

Just a small posting.  In the last weeks I was asked to shoot some aspiring young models, they had never done it before but just love to be in front of the camera.  Certainly not always easy, as sometimes you have to look more at the model and tell them what to do, how to look and pose, etc…  all fine and at the moment you click, they just looked somewhere else…damn :-) .  Charlotte was an exception, very natural in looking and posing.  She was also interested in my camera settings and wanted to see afterwards the pictures that were not successful.  The second picture in the previous posting was a good one of her.  Here 3 other pictures of Charlotte, number one seems to be the best one ( more pictures of her will be posted on my Flicks page).

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f 5.6    1/125    70mm    Iso 100    California Gold sunbounce

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f 5    1/250    70mm    100 ISO    Flash thru white umbrella at 1/8

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f 7    1/160    60mm    100 ISO       here I used the effect of soft glow

→ 1 CommentCategories: BW · Model · Sunbounce · natural light

Silver or Gold California Sunbounce….some samples

27/04/2009 · 4 Comments

It´s  hard to get a blog post ready those last weeks, as currently have one shoot after another and clients do not want to wait too long to see the results J.  With some partners we are also setting up a new model agency here at the Costa Blanca, so lots of work now and upcoming in preparation of this.

I have been experimenting lots with the gold or the silver side of the California Sunbounce.

The Gold side:

-          It gives me a warm glow or even the effect of  a late afternoon sun during the day

-          Easier for the eyes of the model to support

-          Negative is when the model has a white dress or blouse, it tends to loose the exact white color and to give it a more cream color. As well a model with blond ( almost white) hair, it tends to reflect a bit too much gold-brown shine.  Therefore the effect with the different skin color and black hair of the little girls was perfect to use the gold side.

The Silver side:

-          Perfect to use in darker parts of the location

-          It can create a nice kind of cool atmosphere and perfect to use with Urban photo shoots as well.

-          Negative is the harsh light, and difficult to support for the eyes of the model and to be careful when using for very white skin models.

Far below also more pictures  of the shoot I had with 2 lovely girls, a bit different concerning lighting and skin tones but was lots of fun and I´m happy with the results.  Even the skin was darker I still used a lot the gold side of the California sunbounce and for the graffiti the silver side to give a kind of different mood.

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GOLD sunbounce.  Taken at around 13:00 pm, so the sun was very strong. As you can see skin color has a nice warm glow like a later afternoon sun, but blouse took more cream color than original color.  I did not change anything for the skin tones in PS.  I did a little mistake here: Sunbounce was held horizontal and did not light up the full body. (NOTE: I did a new processing later of this picture, to match the exact colors of the picture below to put in the serie.  I just wanted to show you the difference)

f 9    1/320    36mm    ISO 100

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GOLD Sunbounce.  I was standing under a light roof, model outside of it, sun from behind.  Sunbounce at 45 degrees flat from the ground at about 1,5 m from model.  Here I used the curves in PS to change slightly the skin color back to normal and same for the blouse.  As it was midday and the sun very harsh could not use the silver side and would have given the wrong effect. ( I tried it..)

f 7.1   1/250    200mm   ISO 100

charlotte_2181-test-picture-web

SILVER Sunbounce.  THIS IS ONLY A TEST picture with the model and lighting, did not pass and has not been processed !! Standing under a bamboo roof in a patio at the sea, tried the silver sunbounce but as you can see not a satisfied result; also with the gold side not a good result as skin was taking the same color as the light brown door behind the model. Decided to use a flash thru white umbrella for this patio serie.

f 5.6    1/80    135mm    ISO 100

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SILVER Sunbounce.  Late afternoon, sun still high up from the left of the camera, silver sunbounce on the right ( left of the model).  Needed silver to lighten up the face and to give a more cooler effect with the grafitti.

Aperture priority  f 5.6    1/750    135mm   ISO 100

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SILVER Sunbounce.  There was no sunlight coming in here ( sun was behind the wall).  So lighted up the whole picture with the Silver side of the sunbounce.

Aperture priority    f 4.5    1/80    26mm    ISO 100

Below in previous post you see samples of Golden sunbounce with the young girls.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: Sunbounce · Technical · natural light

Interesting shoot with a little girl

12/04/2009 · 3 Comments

Just had an interesting shoot with a vibrant little 7 year old girl.  Interesting because she was dark skinned and therefore my first experience.  I used for the portraits the gold california sunbounce to get a warm and soft color.  Then I switched to the silver side to get a cooler effect for the other pictures.  See the difference below.  I also noticed that when doing the processing, at the end when using unsharp mask…. the hair was quickly overdone and too sharp, not looking nice…

I got some problems in an open field with harsh sun, my shadows were getting too hard.  Certainly need more material.  This week another 3 shoots…so plenty of work.  Hope soon to buy a f2.8 or 1.4 lens.

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f 6.3    1/160    62mm    ISO 100     Gold California Sunbouce

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f 5.3    1/800    90mm    ISO 100   Silver California Sunbounce

I like this shot below !!

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f 6.3    1/160    135mmm    ISO 100    Golden Sunbounce

→ 3 CommentsCategories: Sunbounce · natural light

Some more pictures of horses in action

26/03/2009 · 1 Comment

Below some more pictures of the horse shoot I had recently.

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dsc_0056_1595-final dsc_0075_1614-final

→ 1 CommentCategories: Animals · natural light

Horses in action….first samples

21/03/2009 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday I had an interesting shoot….horses in action.  Certainly different then shooting models, as you can´t ask the horses to wait till your camera settings are ok, or move a bit, etc…  It´s fast shooting and be ready for that nice shot.  I had my sunbounce ready in the car, not sure why as you can imagine you can´t run behind a horse with a sunbounce :-) Lucky weather was fantastic, bright sun but not too much.  For sure it was interesting and I was mostly working with automatic focus, as horses running so fast in front of me.   First I pre set my camera to shutterspeed 320, but found out that I was better to set to a much higher shutter speed.

Below the first samples, more to follow.

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f 11    1/320    55mm    ISO 100

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f 13    1/400    52mm   ISO 100

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Animals · natural light

Gaelle & Graffiti shoot

15/03/2009 · 7 Comments

Here some of the final results of the graffiti shoot with Gaelle.  I wanted something different than previous shoots and much more color.  The shoot should have been earlier to catch more sun and be able to use the sunbounce as the graffiti wall was the dark side of the place and under Pine trees.  But overall I´m pleased with the results….just a broken translucent umbrella, from Walser…they are fragile, probably made in China :-)

Some pics are taken with Sunbounce Silver side and others with 1 SB 600 with the white translucent umbrella.  LET ME KNOW YOUR COMMENTS & FAVORITE PIC.

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f 6.3   1/160    150mm    Silver sunbounce ( late afternoon sun)

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f 5.3   1/60   95mm    Flash 1/8 with translucent umbrella on the left side of the model, still some little sunshine from the right of the model.

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f 4.2   1/60   32mm   Flash 1/4 with translucent umbrella in front of model.  This is the full size of the crop you have seen in the teaser.

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f 4.2   1/160   32mm   Silver sunbounce on the right of the camera.  Used some gaussian blur in photoshop.

→ 7 CommentsCategories: Gaelle · Model · Strobist · Sunbounce · natural light