Make it Simple Behind the scenes video
feat. Jessica & Lauriane
This is the type of behind the scenes video I tend to share less on this channel and this for multiple reasons. One of the fun things about having a YouTube channel for me is to be able to go back in time and relive some fun moments. See me younger... and of course, cringe over my past work. But as a whole, I love it, especially now because there are a few of you who show up every week and I can share these moments with you.
Simple, stripped-down sessions... with me and only me and my camera. Sometimes with one light and sometimes with the sun which is also a light. And If I want to be honest, far from the castles, museums, and all these fancy places I shoot in, I actually shoot more in ugly, common places than you think.
This is the truth, these are the sessions I propose on a regular basis. Nothing fancy, just me and my camera and my client of the day or model because I still do sometimes shoot for fun. You can make cool images with very little and that's what we did a few months back during these 2 separate sessions in Lyon.
When my environment isn't great I often shoot through or near textures, bushes, or trees with tight long focal lenses. This helps me isolate my subject have a lot of things going in the frame and avoid all the ugly parts of the location I am shooting in.
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR
Broncolor Siros L (800ws)
1/125sec f/4 ISO 100
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR Broncolor Siros L (800ws) 1/125sec f/4 ISO 100
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR Broncolor Siros L (800ws) 1/125sec f/4 ISO 50
Jessica and I have worked together in the past, so we can get to work right away. The sun was playing hide and seek with us so I tried to block it and have her in the shade as much as possible and used my flash to balance my shot.
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR Broncolor Siros L (800ws) 1/125sec f/4 ISO 50
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR Broncolor Siros L (800ws) 1/125sec f/4.5 ISO 50
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR Broncolor Siros L (800ws) 1/800sec f/4 ISO 100
I have to stop the video right here because this photoshoot was great up to this point. Unfortunately, I have no images of what happened next but I am going to try my best to describe to you what happened. I wanted to make a few images near the water, with my flash on a light stand without my assistant. It was windy that day and we had to work fast. We joked about that time in 2016 when one of my strobes fell headfirst into the ocean. Do you see where I am going? Yes, my broncolor SIrosL fell again head first in the water. I had my GFX100 in one hand jumped towards my flash and grabbed the light stand with the other hand. Since my hands were full I had to land on my elbow which smacked the concrete floor. Half of my body was in the water, my model reached out to me and I gave her the GFX 100 right away. It took me 5 seconds to get back up and pull half of my flash out of the water. Yes, the best half of it was taking a bath. So of course the session stopped there, I dried with what we had my gear, packed up, and rushed to a friend's apartment where I used a hairdryer to save what could be saved. Long story short, I had to prepare my 2nd shoot of the day that was just a few hours away. This is the reason why the following was done with natural light.
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR 1/160sec f/4 ISO 50
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR 1/160sec f/4 ISO 50
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR 1/500sec f/4 ISO 50
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 120mm f/4 Macro R LM OIS WR 1/200sec f/4 ISO 50
Fujifilm GFX100 + GF 30mm F3.5 R WR 1/30sec f/4.5 ISO 125
What a day, I can laugh about it now because it was a few months ago and I had time to digest all of this. I was really mad at myself that afternoon so now when looking at the images, I am kind of proud of myself because I wasn't at my best.
I really want to thank Jessica who supported me all the way despite the very short session we had that morning. And huge thanks to Lauriane for understanding my strange mood that afternoon.
Lesson learned this will not happen a 3rd time! By the way... my flash still works.