How Did I Shoot This One, Pregnancy edition

1. Introduction How Did I Shoot This One Pregnancy editon: Hey, guys, Frank, and welcome to another episode in our How did I shoot this one episodes? And in all honesty, there are some photo shoots that are special, right? We have special moments in our lives, like a wedding, and, of course, pregnancy and newborns. Now, you might not think when you think about my work about newborn photography, but you are absolutely wrong. The stuff that we post online is mostly fashion and model photography. But of course, as a photo studio, we do everything. We do product photography. We do fan photography, and, of course, also newborn and pregnancy. And well, the newborn and pregnancy photo shoots are always very personal. That's also why we don't post them online. But let me put it this way. Every person is different, right? So if you go to a photo studio to get your pregnancy shot, how often does it happen when they go like, Well, this is the book that we did before, and what do you like? That doesn't work for me, you know, everybody's different. So in this series, I'm going to take you behind the scenes with some different photo shoots and workshops we did with Nadine while she was pregnant. You can see how we shoot something on location, how we light something in the studio, but most importantly, how we try to recreate certain character ideocrisies of Nadine and, of course, me, because, again, we are all unique. And Nadine, of course, is very unique. So that's why we did several photoshoots all Oh, picking out certain parts of their characters. I hope you enjoyed this special episode about pregnancy newborn photography. In the How did I shoot this one series? Are you ready? Let's go. 2. Sea of Flowers : Today, in our episode, How did I shoot this one? We have this great pregnancy shot of Nadine. So how did I shoot this one? During the workshops, I always try to challenge myself and, of course, the students. Sometimes that means that we try different lighting setups or, for example, expressions or motion. But if you have a model and stylist that's pregnant, it's, of course, great to do workshop all about pregnancy. And that's why the coming few videos will all be about creative pregnancy shoots. Now, styling is, of course, a very important part of any photo shoot. You have to make sure that the clothing is correct, that the expression of the model is correct, the poses, and, of course, your backdrop or props. In this case, we choose for a beautiful backdrop with a lot of flowers. And trust me, getting something like this in the picture always is a great shot, and then you have to make it more interesting. So try different angles. And, of course, try filling images, or in other words, filling light. I mean, of course, so, for our first setup, you can, of course, just use, for example, a nice focus light source. For example, our quickie from Gekoto. Now, the nice thing about the quickie is that it's a smaller softbox. But also, when you look at how it's designed, you can see that it steers the light straight towards your model. At the grid, and you can get that beautiful vignette. You don't need Photoshop for that, of course, or light room or whatever converter you use. So our main light source is a focus light beam on our model, and that already gives you a great image if you shoot it straight from the front. But of course, you also want to walk around your model to create more depth and more three dimensionality you shot or in other words, just more interesting images. And that's why I also choose for a red gel on the side. The red gel is aimed towards my model, giving a beautiful accent light. And it also means that when I walk around my model and shoot from the sides, you get this crazy look. And the cool thing about it is if you look closely, you can see that I'm lighting both my backdrop and I'm giving accent lights to my model. So how the heck do I do that with only one stroke? That's the thing about light shapers and light modifiers. When you look at the design of a light shape, you can already predict what it's going to do for lighting. So like with the quickie, you know that it's giving you a focus light straight to the front because, well, it's almost rectangular. Sorry, it almost aims the light straight forward. It doesn't spread it out. And, of course, with the grid, you can also narrow that beam of light. But if you want your light to go both to the backdrop and to your model, which are on opposite sides, there's something else that you can use. And that's our Rogue omnidirectional dome. And this is exactly what I used on that second light, a Gekoto GT 200 with a magnetic system from Rogue, and the omnidirectional dome. Now, the cool thing is, the backdrop you don't even see because it's out of the frame, and that's actually where most of the light is aimed at. But because it's an omnidirectional dome, there's also light coming from the sides. That means if I want more light on that backdrop in the shot, I just aim it towards that backdrop and my model get less and the backdrop gets more. If you want more accent light, you just aim it towards your model. The middle part it's gone. We call it the soap opera efect. What the camera doesn't see, it doesn't register. So that bright light from the middle, that's wasted, but the sight is one for the model, one for that backdrop, and just aim it to balance that light. This is an awesome device in net. It's so small. But it gives you so much opportunities. It's a little bit like using the lantern in some shots where you light both the side of the model and the backdrop. But hey, we can talk about this for hours. Let's take a look at behind the scenes video of this photo shoot with Nadine. As you can see, a great setup. It took us a lot of time to create, and I just love it to do it real, you know? You can always fit some flowers in with, for example, Photoshop generative fill, but I strongly believe that 99% of the shot should be shot in camera. A IE is great. Artificial intelligence. Hey, I'm Dutch. But you shouldn't use it to create something. You should use it to enhance something that you already created. So if there's one flower missing, I have no problems by just adding that with artificial intelligence. I'm not the kind of guy that will just put your model against the backdrop and just create everything with artificial intelligence. So what you see is 99% all flowers real, and sometimes we just addit a little flower because, well, one drop during the workshop, that's possible, right? Hey, I hope you enjoyed this video. See you again next time. Bye guys. 3. Awesome Lighting on Location : Did I shoot this one? And today, it's another shot from our on location in Amoude Works with Nadine. And today, I chose this one. Now, finding the right location is always a challenge for us photographers. But did you know that the most beautiful and challenging locations are actually close to your home or in your town? You know why you never notice them? Because you always walk past them. So for you, they are normal. But for somebody else, they can be really special. And sometimes it's just the lighting and the whole position you create that makes the set special. Now, as you all know, we had this old building right in front of our studio, and we had a beautiful wall there. Now, if you know our click backdrops, you actually know that that wall made it to one of my signature backdrop series. And at this moment, yeah, the real one is gone. So that's the only way I can still shoot that backdrop. And I'm so glad that we did that because it's a beautiful wall. But hey, buildings disappear, and what you end up with is yeah, a big empty space with a lot of sand and some very nice, not so very nice flowers, right? So how do you create something that's interesting here? Well, you probably already saw it Nadine is pregnant. So we thought, You know what? We want to make it soft, make it nice and want to create something in the front because how can you create depth in your image? You can, of course, create depth by using your contrast from your lighting, moving your lighting to the side, creates more contrast. But how about just creating depth by including some stuff in the front? Now, during these workshops, I normally shoot on HSS. I can't do that because, well, we have students that don't use the same camera that I do. And for most cameras, you need a special dedicated commander to actually shoot HSS and ETTL. So with our workshops, we're limited to the so called X sync, and that's 125th of a second. But for these shots, I actually use the commander. So this is why these shots look a little bit different from all the other ones that you see in the previous videos. For this shot, I'm actually using the HSS in the Gekoto GT 200. So this is the stroke I'm using. But this one will give you a lot of light, but even in such bright sunlight, it's always handy to have a little bit more power, right? It's always great to have more power. So that's why I'm using this huge reflector. Now, this reflector gives you a lot more light output. We all probably know these. These are a little bit smaller, but that one really pumps out a lot of power, and that's what we needed here. But we wanted to create depth. Now, as you can see here, in the first image, I don't include everything in the foreground, and it looks great, right? There's nothing wrong with this image. It looks fine. But then I started adding a little bit in the foreground. Now look at the difference that makes. It can also angle your camera just slightly. So look at those two shots, different. And which one do you like most? I don't know. Every day that I look at them, I like one or the other more. And, of course, you can also choose for a totally different viewpoint. Let's go a little bit more up and aim your camera down, as you can see in this image. Now, you see that this image is a little bit more rough. Oh, that's because I tried to emulate like those heavy metal albums, you know, from the 80s and 90s with those long dresses in well, in the forest or in the desert. I didn't make any sense, but it still looked cool, right? So I tried to emulate that a little bit with this shot. Hey, we can talk about the lighting setup a lot, but images always say more than words. Now as you can see the setup was pretty easy, the big reflector aimed at our model Nadine. The trick in this setup is include stuff that's in the front to create more depth, but also the lower viewpoint creates that hero post, that beautiful pose. Now just add a little bit of light, some saturation, and of course, a little bit of Photoshop in these images, and you get the results that you saw. Don't you love those pregnancy shots from Nadine? I do. 4. Pink Balloons : In the series, how did I shoot this one? You already see it, right? This is how I shot this one. During the workshops, it's always nice to work with lighting. Now, in the workshops, I normally try to use lighting that everybody can afford or that everybody has at home. But sometimes you want something a little bit more creative. As you already saw in the previous videos, Nadine is pregnant, and that meant that during the workshop, we, of course, want to focus on being pregnant, but most of all, on getting unique shots because you can, of course, just shoot a pregnant woman with her belly in the frame. Nice lighting and make that little heart. But let's be honest, those images everybody has. Every pregnancy is totally personal, and that's why we tried in this workshop to do four completely different sets, but still fitting that quirkiness of Nadine and, of course, of me. So for this set of, we decided we wanted something else. We have this big box in the studio, and it's actually big enough to fit in a model. We still had some balloons left from the first set, so we decided, let's throw all the balloons in that box. Let's put Nadine in there, and maybe also Joni, and let's create some shots that focus on the pregnancy, but also that actually cover the belly, so we can also use those shots for something else. Now, lighting wise, of course, we can choose for something like, Yeah, there we go. Our quickie soap box, which I absolutely love. It's the Gekoto. It aims the light straightforward, and with the grid, you get that beautiful vignette. Or maybe in a box like this, we can use something oh, like this. How do you like that one? The lantern, where the light just hits the set everywhere. Four, you could go for something completely different. That's why we choose the Lindsey Atla projector. Now, this is a so called gobo projector. Now, the gobo projector you place in front of your normal stroke. Now, the nice thing about the gobo projector is that you can mount a lens. Now, in this case, I'm using a very cheap Yungno lens, and it's a cannon mount, and the nice thing about it is it can fit every cannon mount lens for this projector. You can also, of course, choose to buy a converter from cannon to 42, and you can use your 42 lens. The thing that you have to keep into mind is your aperture of your lens. This is, let me before I make any mistakes. This is a 2.8, I believe, sorry, a 1.8, and it means that it gives you a lot of light output. A projector like this needs light. So that means that you need a strong stroke. That's why we're using it on the GT 400, and you need a fast aperture on your lens. If you use something like a 5.6 lens, there won't be a lot of light left. So 1.8, 2.8 at a maximum. Now, also the length of the lens is important. If you use a 135 lens, you will focus it all on a small area of your set. If you use a 50 mil, you spread it out more, and with a 24 mill, you spread it out even more. Now, the gobo projector, of course, you can use with so called gobos. Those are round. You put them in there and they create on your set, like, for example, a tree or a window. By using the lens, you can focus your image. And that's great. You can make it sharp, or you can make it less sharp. This is actually one of the best things you can use on your backdrop or if you want really stark lighting effects on your model. In this case, we didn't use the gobo. This one also has so called blades. And with the blades, you can create almost anything you want on your model. Round is a little bit difficult, but a square, a rectangle, or maybe a triangle is no problem at all. And again, by using the focus, you can make that transition sharp or less sharp. As you can see in the images, I choose to create a rectangular light pattern on our model Nadeen. Now, of course, when you create a rectangular light pattern and you make it really sharp, that means that everything else is totally dark. So you only have that beam of light on your model. And that's, of course, a shame for all those balloons. Now the balloons are pink, and pink, let's call that for now magenta. And magenta is on the bottom part of our colored triangle, and that means that red is on one side of magenta and blue is on the other. So I could opt, for example, to open up the shadows with just normal lighting or I can use to use a red gel or a blue gel. In this case, we're using the omnidirectional dome from rogue. On our magnetic system, and I'm using a blue gel because the blue on the magenta or sorry, on the pink balloons just created a beautiful effect. Now, the effect is, of course, way lower than your main light because you still want that main light to create that nice rectangular of light. You don't want it to disappear and just make it white light and blue filling. Focusing, well, we want it to be sharp but not too sharp. So I put it slightly out of focus and just aimed it on my model. So aim it at your model and tell your model to stay put like that. Now, some of the images, we wanted to focus on our belly, so that's why we didn't have a balloon in front. And some of the images maybe we want to use later without the focus on the pregnancy. So that's why some shots you don't see the belly. Now, later on, we decided it would also be fun to put Joni in the shot maybe in the back. The problem is, however, that Joni was, of course, very dark. So that's why we moved our blue gel a little bit to the front. So it would also give some accent lighting to Yoni. But then, well, Nadine is white light and Yoni is blue light. We don't want that. So for the set with Joni, we're actually using our Rogue magnetic system and then the snoot. Now, the nice thing about our snoot let me show you very quickly, is that you can use it in different settings. So, for example, this is very focused, a little bit less, even less or more white. So you have a few different setups you can use it for. The snoot I just aimed at Joni's face. And because we just put it down a little bit, you can see that it just spreads out nicely over his clothing, and then it transforms into the blue accent lighting. In all essence, it's a fun shoot and it's great to work with the Gbo projector. But we can talk about it for hours, you know, the drill. Let's look at the behind the scenes video of this shot with the Lindsey Adler projector. As you can see, a great setup and lots of fun with the projector. I highly recommend getting something like this just to play around with and create stunning lighting effects. Combine it with gels. Oh, man, the sky's the limit. 5. A New Baby is Coming : Heck did I shoot this one? Now, this one isn't that interesting for lighting, but there is a tip in there that I wanted to share with you guys. Now, when you shoot two models in a set, it's always important to realize that you want both models to be about equally sharp. Now, it's no problem that the front model is sharper than the back model, of course, but you don't want the one in the back to be totally out of focus. So that means that we have to take into account, of course, our aperture. You don't want to shoot something like this on 2.8, for example, because then, well, Nadin would be sharp and her son in the B one would be unsharp. But first, let me talk a little bit about what we're actually doing. Nadine is pregnant, and during these workshops, we decided to do some with pregnancy shut, of course, because, hey, that's interesting, right? Now, in this case, the story was actually that Joni, her son is feeling a little bit let down because there's a new kid coming, and well, he feels a little bit in the bag. So we decided to put him in the bag in this set and just focus everything on Nadine. But I still wanted that expression of Joni, and that's why we needed Joni to be at least sharp enough to recognize that expression. But there's something else. Of course, with your aperture, you control your depth of field. But how about lighting? Because if you only light one model, it's easy, right? You place your lighting. You take your art light meter, you met a 5.6, put your camera on 5.6, and that's it. But if you have two models, there's something called the Iver square law. Light falls off over the distance. W two models, it's very important to realize how far from your main subject did you place your lighting. Now, in this case, I place my lighting under an angle. So that means that I'm lighting both Joni and Nadine. Now, of course, the light has to be further away than I would normally do. But hey, that's great for this set because, well, normally in our studio, we of course, use our click backdrops. We use our painted walls or we use seamless. But sometimes we also build sets like for example here with our removable walls. And in this case, we actually choose the pink. Don't you just love that pink? And in this case, it's very important to also create depth in that set. So that means that I want that whole set to be lit. Now, of course, you can use a soffox with a grid for that, but then you only aim your light at one person. You can use a soafbox without a grid for it. But hey, then you only light the set from that front side. If you want your light to spread out more over the set, we have this great sof box for you, and it's called the Lantern from Gigoto. The nice thing about a lantern is that it's not black on the side, so that means that it also emits light from the sides, especially when lighting sets and backdrops, of course. That's great because now you have a omnidirectional light source, and that's actually what we use here. After figuring out the distance by using a light meter, it was time for the expressions. Now storytelling is a huge part of something like this, and I wish I had more time to really dive into this during a workshop. But most of the time, I'm really pushed for my time because we also have students that want to shoot. So what I decided to do was just put Joni in the back, make him look really sad, hold a sword, maybe to put a hole in all those balloons. And Nadine, of course, super proud in the front posing like a model. But hey, we can talk about this for hours. Let's take a look at the behind the scenes video so you can see the lighting set up and just get some of the fun that we had during this photo shoot. As you can see, a really simple lighting setup. And trust me, lighting doesn't have to be focused all the time. Sometimes lighting a whole set with two models with one light source can even be more difficult than just focusing your light on a model. 6. Smoke and Shadows : Y. How did I take this shot? Well, today, it's about something else. It's not really about lighting. In essence, it is, but it's about something else. Now, Nadine is pregnant. You could see that probably, right? And during the workshops, we love to experiment with, of course, her pregnancy because shooting a pregnant woman is totally different from shooting a normal model, of course, because you have the belly, and you want to also make sure that you focus on that belly because, well, that's what you want to remember later on, right? So we decided in this workshop to do a lot of creative setups with our model Nadine. And you probably already saw in the other videos that we did a pretty good job for one day. But then during the last setup, we experimented with smoke and with back lighting and, of course, using a red gel. But then there's also a solution that a lot of people don't use. And normally I would be a little bit hesitant to use this. But with this shot, it just worked out perfectly. Now, when you look at the lighting setup like this, you of course, have your main light setup on your model. Now, because you're using smoke, you always want to make sure that you light the smoke from the back, because if you light smoke from the front, you just get a large white wall or a red wall, depending on the gel you use, of course. When you light smoke from the back, you get those beautiful smoky looks that well, you used to in photo shoots. So that's why the lighting was already set up from the side. So when you shoot from the front, you have this beautiful side lighting from the smoke and you light on your model. But what if and I always tell you guys to do this during the photo shoot, walk around your model. So, in this case, I walked towards my omnidirectional dome with the red gel, and as you can see in this image, it created a beautiful shadow on the wall. So you have our pregnant model and the shadow with just the silhouette and the belly. And I just love that shot. It's a totally different shot than you normally see. And normally using those shadows can be a little bit awkward, but in this case, well, it just worked. So let's take a look at the behind the scenes video so you can see that it was mainly actually aimed at using the smoke and then the idea of the shadow came in. As you can see, a relatively simple setup, but by using the right angle and using the shadows, you create something unique and I think something that Nadine will absolutely love as her pregnancy shot.