Jurgen Doom Fotografie

Brico Cover - Pirate meets Princess meets Photographer

2 August 2010 om 14:49 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Camera, Commercial, Photography, Uncategorized

Photography is an expensive occupation.  Children are expensive too.  A combination of being a “photographer with children” is hugely expensive ….

But sometimes the two come together and work well for each other.  Like that one time when I had to photograph the cover of Brico magazine, a 3-monthly that DIY-hardware store Brico publishes.

The ad-agency asked me if I could help finding children between 5 and 8 for an article about a grandfather who had build a “hut” up in a tree for his grand childrren.  Ideally they would be dressed like a pirate, a princess, a “what-have-you” “you-name-it” ….

Myrte, my daughter of 7, just loves getting dressed as a princess and for Johannes, my 5 year old boy, being a pirate comes second nature to him.

And so it happened that they finally figured on the cover of a magazine. Mind you, for Johannes it was already his second appearance on the cover of a magazine.  The first time was when he was about 3 months old.  But the money I made with that cover has long been blown on nappies, etc …. So it was time to top up on some “money credits” ….

Cover of Brico magazine, featuring my two kids.

Cover of Brico magazine, featuring my two kids.

This image was photographed on a Nikon D3x and a 24-70mm 2.8, ISO200, F5.6 at 1/100.  We used one SB900 speedlight (which we litteraly had to hang in a tree in order to get the right angle), gelled with a full cut CTO gel and complemented the lighting with a golden reflector.  The flash was triggered through Nikon’s CLS system.

This image is half of a double spread that ran in the inner pages of the magazine.

This image is half of a double spread that ran in the inner pages of the magazine.

So finally I’ve been able to use them to make me some money, instead of costing me money.  But hey, that money has already been spent …. on a new princess and pirate outfit!

Portrait of a musician

9 April 2010 om 16:01 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Uncategorized

Pieter is a pianist. I had to photorgaph him with a piano for a feature on “people and music”.

The images are photographed in a small room, using two or three Nikon SB900 speedlights as well as a soft box.

Portrait of a musician, pianist.

Portrait of a musician, pianist.

The most difficult part in the whole setup was to contain the light and get it exactly where I wanted it to go.  In a small room you easily have a spill of light against the ceiling or the walls, eventually ruining the shot.

Portrait of pianist Pieter Smout.
Portrait of pianist Pieter Smout.

The image that was used for the magazine was the one above, and the layout can be seen next.

Portrait of a musician, magazine layout.
Portrait of a musician, magazine layout.

Freelance photographers should earn 500€ per portrait session

30 October 2009 om 15:48 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Uncategorized

I was recently comissioned to photograph a professor in philosphy at the University of Leuven. During the shoot, with my client at my side, the professor asked what kind of money I made with such a shoot.
Not really willing to give him the exact figure, I asked him what this shoot was worth to him.

He replied by saying that this 30 minutes session was probably worth about 500€.

I turned towards my client, who was standing next to me, and suggested we should “sit down and talk” ….

Later on, I thought about it and I saw a few possible explanations for why he said this - rather high - amount;

a. He looked up to me, the photographer
b. He thought he was worth the money to be photographed
c. He thought photographers were worth that amount of money for a small portrait session.

I invite you to make up your mind ….

OKRA - cover shot

OKRA - cover shot

Onlangs moest ik een foto maken - een portret eerder - van een Leuvens prof filosofie. Een interessante ervaring, bleek achteraf, want tijdens de portretsessie vroeg de man langs zijn neus weg “wat schuift dat nu, zo foto’s maken” … ?

Ik kaatste de vraag terug naar hem, vragende wat hij dacht dat dit waard was, zo’n portretsessie.

Na enig geaarzel kwam hij uit op de ronde som van 500€.

Ik keerde me om naar de redactrice die er bij was en stelde voor eens samen te zitten om over “het een en ander te praten” …..

Ik heb een paar mogelijke verklaring voor zijn - laat ons duidelijk zijn - veel te hoge schatting;

hij keek geweldig op naar mij als fotograaf (zie coverfoto)
hij vond dat hij zoveel waard was als “te fotograferen onderwerp” (oordeel zelf)
hij had waarschijnlijk het beste met de fotografie voor en wou voor de neus van mijn opdrachtgever toch maar even laten voelen wat wij fotografen waarden zijn.

Ik laat het aan u om te oordelen. Ondertussen ga ik nog een portretje maken, kwestie van de rekeningen op tijd betaald te krijgen.

Salsa!

18 May 2009 om 15:41 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Commercial, Flashlight, Portrait, Uncategorized

For Linea Recta Media, a Dutch media agency specialised in corporate magazines (amongst other things) commissioned me to do a shoot of a girl who does salsa dancing.

The editor wanted a full length photograph of the girl dancing alone and dancing with a partner, with her face visible (or at least recognisable to the readers of the corporate magazine, in this case One! for Unilever Benelux).

In order to do so we met on a Sunday evening in “La Tentation“, a Brussels centre for dancecourses where we set up for the shoot. During the shoot, the salsa dance was in full swing, with litteraly thens of people dancing the night away.

As it was impossible to obtain the desired images with dancing people around my dancer, we had to move to a corner in the room.  Another problem is the fact that you cannot just photograph people and publisch them in a corporate magazine.  Should you want to do this, you would need a model release from everybody present in the room, which is practically impossible.

For the shoot I used two Nikon SB900 speedlights with a full CTO color filter, in order to balance for the avaible (warm) light in the room.  I also used a long lens (2.8 70-200mm VR ) and shot at high ISO levels in order to capture the ambient light.  My settings were ISO 3200, f/5.6 at 1/50sec.

Using the speedlights I was able to sculpture the lights on my model without altering the light on the background.  I used two stands to put on my flashlights and angled the at about 30° towards the dancer.  The lefthandside speedlight was about 1 stop brighter than the righthandside speedlight (in order to keep depth and dimension in the face).

 

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Anyone for a dance?