Live Portrait Contest

Last saturday my assistant Marc Engelsma and I won the Live Portrait Contest in Cologne! Yiehaa!

 

This is the series of photos we made of model Beau Rocks:

 

In front of an audience of  photographers we had 55 minutes to shoot a series of 5 photos. The theme of the shoot was “the art of new burlesque” and we had to use at least 2 different lighting setups and take at least one close-up, one full body and one 3/4 shot. All 5 contestants were given the same equipment: a Nikon D3 body with different lenses and 5 Multiblitz studio lights. Within the 55 minutes we also had to copy the photos to the computer, convert them and work on them in Photoshop and present them in a portfolio. A little pressure was there…

For anyone interested in the technical part: this is how we shot our photos. Because of the time pressure I thought it would be practical to use only two different lighting setups.  I decided to do the first 4 shots in a row with the same light, this would give some unity in the series. But it would also get us in a nice  flow of shooting right away, not having to change a lot in between the shots. After that we would only have to change once and do the final shot.

For the first 4 shots we used all 5 light, in a setup like this. A main light with an octabox overhead, two strip lights to the side, and a pink gelled light on the background. Marc was holding one flash that shot straight into my lens to give a little flare.

Besides the lights, I also held a little fabric in front of my lens to give some extra mood to the images.

 

All the shots were done faster than we thought, so before moving on with the next shot Marc and I took the chance to quickly take an iPhone shot with our beautiful model Beau Rocks!  To show to my mother at home.  ;-)

For the last shot, of the pose where Beau was on the floor we changed the light: still one overhead main light and two light over exposing the background by a couple of stops so would come out nice and bright. I set the white balance to tungsten light so the colors became a lot cooler than the other shots.

 

 

 

Working with Beau was so professional and relaxed that these shot were done pretty quickly as well. Too bad it was over so fast, because the shoot itself always is the fun part for me!

After that we had to copy the images and work on them. I had the idea to add some texture and change the colors a bit so the images would all fit together. This is a before and after:

 

So fantastic to win this award! Everything worked out fine on the stage, the shooting was fantastic with Beau Rocks and Marc was a super assistant. And best of all: my laptop didn’t freeze during the editing. Marc and I celebrated it in the same way we prepared for it: with a couple of beers!