Erik Sacré

Today was a very sunny day in Belgium. This seemed a good day to continue my learning experience involving the Elinchrom Quadra. So I called upon my parents to be today’s subjects. This time I remembered to bring light stands, so nobody had to handhold the light.

I looked for the correct exposure, and dropped it down about two stops. I added one Quadra head, and did some test shots to find the right setting. Here are some results:

Serious parents

Cheerful parents

Crazy parent...

See more on Flickr.

Today I continued my test of the Elinchrom Quadra system. This time we did an improvised shot near a log cabin and some fields. All of the pictures were made with a single light with standard reflector. This time I took a light stand with me, so I did not need a VAL.

I like the set. The Skyport lets me change the settings right from my camera, and although 400 Ws may not be enough to overpower the sun on a really sunny day, it is more than enough for most situations. Now it’s up to me to learn and control this light.

In front of the log cabin

So far away

Oh may... a bit bright!

Could not resist the field, and yes, she is wearing a dress

About a year ago I made some portraits of my parents in their garden. Today we did another quick portrait session, this time to test a new toy I got today: an Elinchrom Quadra lighting set.

I used a single light head for these pictures. I did not have a light stand, so each of my parents served as a voice activated light stand. For the shot of the two of them, I was holding the light head in my left hand while trying to shoot with a single hand. I must say the weight of the lens made this a short-lived exercise.

Mom

Parents

Oh boy! Last week I was finally able to return to shooting. This time there were three children present. There seems to be a pattern: every time I do some child photography, the number of children increments by one.

Anyway… The idea was to make some environmental shots, i.e. make pictures of the children in their home, while they were doing their thing. In addition to having to act really fast, the additional challenge came from the light. My previous shoots involving children were done in the safety of my home studio. This time I had to balance the ambient light with flash.

I limited myself to a single flash, with and without an umbrella. I got some interesting shots, but I was not able to get the lighting right! I need more practice.

The shots that came out best were portrait-like shots. The ones with the dark background were completely natural, i.e. no posing, but children hopping on and off the couch. The one with the light background started out as a posed picture. However, the youngest child wouldn’t stop moving his hands, and the oldest one got bored and rolled his eyes. Happy accident…

View the complete set in this slideshow on Flickr.

All in all I enjoyed the afternoon, but I really need more practice to master flambient lighting. To be continued…

Couch as background

Same couch as background

Happy accident while posing

After many, many (especially for you, Ank) months of too little shooting I finally had a longer shoot with two sisters. This one lasted a little over three hours, and allowed ample opportunity to play with different lighting setups and poses. Neither sister had any experience with photo shoots, which was a good thing as I only had 15 minutes of experience shooting children. This meant we were learning together…

I must say that this shoot went considerably smoother than the last one involving a child. Once you can talk to children, they are just like real people (ok, that is soooo not funny). It was possible to direct them, and get them to a point where they also came with their own ideas for outfits & poses. Unfortunately I have a very constrained “studio”. I do not have the space to take full-length shots, jumps, etc.

After some initial classic head shots the girls started to loosen up, especially the little one. This resulted in some nice poses of the two of them together, in addition to some playful pictures using props. All in all this was a very entertaining shoot for the subjects and for the photographer. Now let’s see whether we can organize more of these shoots. I want and need more practice! I’m already dreaming of improving my lighting skills, and doing a session outdoors, where I can (try to) combine ambient and flash.

Sisters, obviously a composited picture

Silke

Sara & Silke

More pictures can be seen in this Flickr slide show.

As we are approaching the end of 2009, I thought I would make a self-portrait-like movie-poster-ish thingy. I bought myself a Canon Powershot G11 for those occasions where I don’t want to move my much heavier Nikon DSLR equipment. Just for fun I took some self-portraits, using a radio trigger and 3 speedlights. I experimented with some different lighting setups. In the end I settled for 2 grids and one shoot-through umbrella to get a semi-tough look.

Not satisfied with this, I applied some techniques from “Photoshop CS4 Down & Dirty Tricks” by Scott Kelby. I turned my self-portrait into something much more contrasty and 3D looking, and I added a suitable caption with a fitting effect.

The title says it all… The image summarizes 2009 for me. Click on the image to get a larger view.

2009 did this to me

Here’s hoping for a more satisfying 2010. Happy holidays, folks.

Today I had my first experience shooting a young-ish child, a three year old boy. I had read about the challenges of shooting children, and I must admit that all of the horror stories I read are true! I knew I was in trouble when it turned out the boy had less patience than yours truly, which means his patience is pretty much negative, since I have zero myself…

Anyway… In the 15 minutes or so we did get some shots. For most of them I used a single speedlight with a shoot-through umbrella, as I really did not have the time, nor was I fast enough, to setup anything else. I will have to start a training program to improve my reflexes.

I was shooting tethered, straight into Lightroom. The idea was that I could see what I was doing, and the little fellow could watch himself om the big computer screen. Except for the first shot or two I never even looked at the monitor. Everything was moving and changing so fast that I found myself using all of my energy trying to talk to the kid, making him do stuff, trying to keep things playful by asking him to make funny faces, or look very angry. That worked for a while.

Interesting experience, but mediocre results.

Introducing Evert-Kiran

Suddenly there was a balloon

Deep concentration

I really need to iron my background! The reflexions were created by putting a plexy glass plate on the floor.

More pictures can be seen in this slideshow on Flickr.

I took a little trip down memory lane. In 1986 I crossed the canal by boat. At a given moment we needed to cross 4 elevators. This was impressive & beautiful.

Today the 4 elevators are only used on occasion for tourism. They have been replaced by a monster: an elevator that can take boats 70 meters up or down in one go!

Strépy-Thieu

Compare this to the charm & beauty of the old elevators:

Elevator #3

More pictures can be seen on my Flickr photo stream.

Here’s a just-for-fun shot of the Five Eriks:

• Laptop-Erik
• TV-Erik
• Book-Erik
• Ice cream-Erik
• Guitar-Erik

It represents a typical night at Casa Erik.

The Five Eriks

I spent last week in the Boston area. The reason for visiting was business. Somehow I got lucky, and was able to do some shooting as well. A friend of a friend was organizing a shooting with model Cassie in a town called Lowell. This evening was reserved for a maximum of 4 photographers. I was very fortunate to be invited as one of the four.

I did not bring my camera on this trip, so I had to borrow one. Jerry, who organized this evening, was kind enough to lend me a Canon camera. It was my first serious shoot with Canon equipment. It took some getting used to, but as anyone knows, the best camera is the one that’s available to you. After a handful of shots, I was able to find the buttons and dials I needed, and I got some decent exposures.

We started the shoot outside. While we were standing on the railroad tracks, shooting Cassie in front of a graffiti covered railway car, we heard some 50’s music and saw a classic car drive by. Turned out there was a gathering of classic cars just on the other side of the tracks. After asking permission to the car owners, we were able to make some very nice shots of Cassie in and around those beautiful vehicles, using natural light and a reflector.

Drive-in time

The sun was setting, so the light came from a fairly low angle. We had to be careful to keep our own shadows out of the frames.

Daydream

After a while we returned to the studio. We started with ‘just’ Cassie (there is no such thing as ‘just’ Cassie — I really meant to say: no props).

Just Cassie

I remembered Jerry showing me a bow and arrow on my last visit. I wondered if we could do something with it. No problem. We reconstructed a shot Jerry had made, which involved a spotlight and a strip bank.

Tense muscles

All in all I had a blast. It was fun to be working with this small group of very friendly people. I hope that I will be able to participate in this type of event in the future.

See more pictures of this evening in this Flickr set. Interested to participate in a similar experience? This is Jerry’s meetup.