Hans' blog

I promised my Flickr audience a tutorial for hand coloring pictures a few weeks ago. Well here it is. Hand coloring of pictures is quite fun, it’s a nice mixture of photography and painting.

What do you need ? You need a strong vision, a suitable B&W conversion, you have to decide how to color it and you need Photoshop to do the work for you. The method I lay out for you here, is a simple method. There are more sophisticated methods around, but the time/quality ratio on this one works just fine. By the way the coloring itself is the most simple part.

Firstly you need a vision how your end result will look like. I like the old master painters and we are of course quite spoiled here in the Netherlands with our Dutch masters. I used Vermeer as an inspiration for a photo taken by Céline.

Vermeer is a good example to look at. Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is quite popular amongst photographers in general and I think it’s because of the probable use of the camera obsura (some historians think he didn’t, but I think he did). There are essentially five characteristics of Vermeer’s paintings that suggest the use of a camera obscura: perspective, tonal rendering, composition, handling of light and some peculiar effects produced uniquely by the camera obscura.

Continue Reading…

It’s quite amazing what one strobe can actually do. Learned this from Joe McNally in Venice where I had a workshop in June. It’s only one SB900 triggered remotely with an SC29 cord (via infra red). The strobe is gelled with 1/2 CTO.

The strobe is put on the ground on the small plastic holder. Behind myself is the water, lots of water actually which acts a a huge soft box with the rising sun in the East (it’s about 7:30 AM). That explains the frontal soft light (without it it would a be less stronger photo). Shot at 2.8 with a Nikkor 2.8 70-200mm at 2.8. If you have any questions please use the comment box.

Traveling light and working fast under budget and time constraints is a challenge nowadays. One little strobe can make a difference.
Keep following ‘m.

Today I visited the The George Eastman House. it’s the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the world’s oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and photograph conservation, educating archivists and conservators from around the world.

George Eastman (July 12, 1854 – March 14, 1932) founded the Eastman Kodak Company and invented roll film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream (click the pictures to view large).

He had 4 business principles/guidelines which he followed whole his life. The product (camera & film) had to be working all the time, so decisive moments wouldn’t be missed.

Continue Reading…

A photographer nowadays has to be so versatile if he/she would like to stand out. The camera has become a kinda super computer with tons of buttons (I’m using the D3 and studied the inside recently), you have to understand light, Photoshop (which can be a pain in the butt). You have to market yourself (therefore you need to understand the Web) and if you would like to shoot people, like I do, you have to make a connection with your subject. I must say I enjoy the latter the most.

Two weeks ago I did a two day shoot for a Training Company, shooting its trainers and clients. I arrived at the set in Amsterdam at 19:30. haven’t met the models before who would “act” as the clients and there he was: A guy by the name of Hans (what’s in a name ). You can see him below with the glasses (click photo for large).

I immediately sensed a great photo opportunity. A dramatic face with impact. I could relate to him and he to me, there was the click you need. I had my last beer Continue Reading…

If you are a B&W lover like me you know that there are zillions of ways to convert a color photo into B&W. If you are still hooked to the days of B&W film you would probably like to know how to emulate film with a digital camera. Some say the best way to do this is to buy a nice film camera on Ebay and scan the films in the computer and voila, best of both worlds. That’s all fine, but also a lot of work and mostly work you’re not paid for. Furthermore I have far more fun with a camera in the field than behind my Mac spending hours on one picture.

I’ll give you three efficient ways to convert color into B&W. I use them quite a lot because of the time/quality ratio. The first is a Photoshop action from Kent Christiansen, you can find the pdf here and you can download the action itself on this page. It’s 3 years old but still very powerful because of its huge control.

Play with it you’ll like it and it saves time with still a high quality output, like the one above, entirely done in 15 minutes. The second one is one from Continue Reading…

Got “some” questions after Venice about shaping light. Also funny remarks of comparing the Canon-Nikon to the PC-Mac switch. Mostly by Nikonians not by Canonians. Some Canonians were not amused. Fact is that a lot of people switch nowadays, sorry C’s but facts are friendly.

Understanding light is a task you’ll never finalize in a lifetime. If you’re serious about really improving your understanding and becoming more able to predict light read this. It’s an excellent book, 124 reviewers giving 5 stars tells you something. Once you’ve started to grasp light, it’s time to buy some light shaping tools. The nice thing is that compared to camera’s and lenses light shaping tools are quite inexpensive. The bad thing is that compared to a bed sheet these things are ridiculously expensive. Bed sheets do work, I’ll get back to that in a minute. Continue Reading…

Had a very cool week in Venice. A VSP workshop with Joe McNally. Great bunch of people too from all over the world, the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria… It was all about strobes, the SB900 flash from Nikon. Canon shooters not welcome here. Made “the switch” 3 months ago, never looked back. Coming from a 580EXII Canon strobe felt like moving from a PC to the Mac. Most of you would know what I mean by that. Great to have buttons at all the right places.  Never knew how much you can actually do with flash, it’s like havin’ day light in your pocket. You need to learn a lot though as “photons go everywhere”.

I love the unpredictable and I love light, so 1+1=3 for me. No time for a workshop ? Read Joe’s book or pay a visit to strobist. People ask me a lot about what camera do I use, what lenses, what settings… the tech stuff. My feeling is good gear gets you the last 20% or so but the first 80 is predominantly eye and light. Now if you can mould light to your benefit that certainly helps.

Continue Reading…