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When I picked up my first camera in 2010, I wished my future me could go back in time to tell these 10 pieces of advice. Perhaps my 550D and I would have progressed much faster? Who knows... 7 years later I am happy to share these with you. 1/ Understand Light It took me some time to understand that and I Kind of feel ashamed of not realizing earlier in my journey how important light is for a photographer. Light is the key element for a good photo. If you don't understand light your pictures will look like crap even if you photoshop them. Take your time to understand, even on your own how light behaves. When does it look good, when is it too harsh and creates strong shadows? Theoretically, how do you get good light? There are specific times of the day when the light is just awesome. The first 2 hours after sunrise (you can stretch to 3) are for me the best to take pictures. The light is soft and the direction and angle are the best, especially if you are shooting people. Lavinia Scott at sunrise (Milano / Italy) If you are lazy (and that is not a good thing), go for the sunset. By shooting 2 hours before the sun disappears ( "the golden hour" as they call it), you will get awesome colors in the sky, amazing tones, and warmth on your model's skin. Virginia Danh and Edouard Doye (Strasbourg - France) If you are like me and wish to have empty scenes for your pictures, you gotta get up early! I often use strobes outdoors and although it can help you shoot at almost any time of the day (depending on the power of your flash), I still advise you to shoot during the golden hour. 2/ Work on your Compositions This is a widely discussed subject, I've said it before I even made a video for beginners about it last week . Don't just go out there and shoot for the sake of shooting. Think before you press that button. Try different angles... Does it look good standing at the model's level, kneeling down, or laying on the ground? Think about how these different perspectives affect your photo. How does it make you feel? Knowing how each of your decisions can affect your photo will help you make creative decisions instead of just randomly capturing a shot. Giving a dominant role to the viewer, or a powerful position to your subject depends on what you wish to tell. What is the purpose behind the shot, what is the story? So many questions only you can answer. This will come with time. Get out and question yourself every time you decide to capture something. Photo of Eloize Rignon taken from above (Lyon / France) Another one with Lavinia Scott taken from below (Milano / Italy) 3/ Locations In some famous cities, you have these locations photographed by millions of people. I am not telling you not to shoot there! Just reminding you that the world has so much to offer. There are amazing places everywhere. Where ever you live, you just have to take that extra time to look for these locations. I made a video for starters on the subject a few weeks back, you should check it out: How to find locations. What sets a lot of the photographers I follow apart is that they are willing to take that extra time to make those research. That's how they end up with fresh locations, places that are rarely used for photoshoots. If you are forced to shoot in front of a tourist attraction then make sure you get that new perspective on it. Find an original angle... Remember tip number 2? Make it a challenge and go find that new perspective that will set you apart. Early bird shoot in front of the famous Duomo di Milano (Milano / Italy) 4/ Pay attention to the background This for me now sounds obvious, but I use to overlook this advice. When you are concentrated on your model, and all the technical stuff involved in the making of your picture, you tend to forget things... Things that can actually ruin your picture. This is one of them, and it took me a year to think about it before each shot. Avoid at all costs any objects sticking out of your subject's head or from any parts of their body. I see this all over the web on Instagram and Facebook. Having these performers doing killer stuff and "boom" they have that building sticking out of their B... !!! Sometimes I ask myself "Damned, how could they not see that". But I made the same mistakes too. Putting your model in a place where their head is not cut off by the horizon, or not accidentally interacting in a weird way with the background is essential. I advise you also to avoid having a too busy background. The idea is to avoid any elements that can distract from the main subject, keep the horizon leveled unless tilting your photo is intentional. Your model can interact with the environment, but you have to be careful with that, make sure people understand what's going on in your picture. In this picture feat. Elena Francalanci and Axier Iriarte (Torino / Italy), I centered my subjects but used symmetry to make it more interesting. Their pose was influenced by the leading lines forming an "X". This is an example of how the environment and background can merge with your models. Oh, let me add this real quick, please stop doing that Bokeh thing to look "professional" or to hide a hideous background. Just Change location or find a better angle or composition. Bokeh as to remain a creative tool! 5/ Learn your Camera This one may sound stupid but I am guilty of this! A Lot of you never read the manual, went out with your shiny new camera, and started shooting because you were too excited. 6 months later you discover you are using less than 5 percent of your camera's capabilities... I personally got better when I stopped being lazy about my photography. I got out of the all automatic mode and I began to improve my shots and really use my camera as an artistic tool. I am now reacting faster, and handling my camera is 2nd nature, I no longer have to think of which button to push next. I have customized some of the buttons of my camera to make it my own, and I feel it is now an extension of me. With time you will also know roughly what ISO and shutter speed you will have to use in specific conditions or for specific effects. To summarize this... Work! 6/ Learn your lenses After the camera, the Lenses...Lenses tell stories, yes, they all have different personalities and feel. 85 mm and 135 mm lenses are often used for portraits and there is a reason. "Compression" with these lenses gives a more pleasing look and respects body proportions which is not the case for wider lenses. My head was completely distorted by the 11mm! Sabrina Alberelli shot at 160mm: Plus, you can easily add that "Bokeh" to your shots without narrowing too much your depth of field to give that clean separation with your background. It's really a matter of taste, I used to have my 50 mm on me all the time and use it for any kind of picture from portraits to landscape photography. It is a great cheap versatile prime lens I highly recommend to beginners. I have been shooting wide a lot recently, loving the possibility of including a lot of the environment in my shots. Doing a mix of architecture and portraiture has become part of my style these days. Down below free runner Robin Ohl inside l'Aubette (Strasbourg / France) at 24 mm Uva Virginia and Cesar Agazzi captured at 16mm inside les Abattoirs (Toulouse / France) Art wort by Julie chaffort. I am actually testing the 11 to 24 mm right now, hope to share this with you guys soon. To summarize, get out there, borrow lenses from a friend, and experiment! 7/ Shoot RAW Jpeg is useful when you do little to no edits to your shots. I personally shoot RAW because I edit, color grade, retouch my pictures. I need the best possible files out of my camera sensor to fully work on my images. I understand that for sports photography (for example), huge competitions, and events, the use of jpegs is necessary. You are capturing thousands of photos in a very short amount of time, and you have to deliver them fast to your clients. Your camera has to keep up, and so does your memory card... If this is not your case, and if you wish to be a little bit more creative, you have to shoot RAW. This will give you the option to stylize your photo and give that unique signature look to your pictures. To summarize this, the power of Raw helps you get that photo you love to the next level. 8/ Don't be afraid of photo editing software This one was easy to guess... Don't be afraid of photoshop, capture one, Lightroom, or whatever software that exists out there. These take time to master. I personally started with Lightroom, before slowly migrating to photoshop. Lightroom is a powerful tool. You can use it as a catalog to organize your work, I still use it to edit large amounts of photos. Like everything in life, it's frustrating at first. it's again a new thing you have to learn, but trust me, Lightroom is very intuitive and you will master it in no time. You have a handful of photographers sharing free lessons on Lightroom out there. Photographers like Serge Ramelli for example And if you want to dive into Photoshop, I highly recommend the guys from Phlearn . Don't be afraid, jump into the fun of editing your pictures, you will thank me later. 9/ Work with talented people When starting out, you don't have that many options. You will have to shoot your friends, cousins, and whoever has some time to waste with a starting photographer. Hopefully, your skills will improve, and depending on your career goals you will want to move on from shooting your neighbor's son kicking the ball to working with a professional soccer player. I've been there, and for a long, I thought my work wasn't good enough to work with professional athletes, dancers, and performers. You have to believe in your work and skills, and go out there reach out to these professionals that might need your eye and skills to make them look good. To go a little bit further, look out for emerging makeup artists and hairstylists. Surround yourself with passionate, hardworking people that share the same goals as you and who wish to work on multiple projects that involve teamwork that will create a bigger impact. 10/ Shoot on a tripod This is the last tip and one that has helped me a lot on some of my most challenging pictures. Sometimes, you cannot shoot at the ideal time of day and this happens you have to find solutions to make the shots. I am not talking about the weather or the light here, but people ruining your shots in the background. Choose your framing and composition, set your camera on a tripod, and start shooting your model. Once you nailed the pose or movement, take a couple of pictures with a few seconds interval or wait for people to move. These "clean" plates you captured will help you remove anyone from your shots easily by masking them out in photoshop in post. I think this one definitely needs its own video and article... So that's it, I am sure you will have tons of questions after watching the video and reading this unusually long article. I believe each point mentioned could be developed in a separate post-it already gives me ideas for future videos. Ask me anything in the comments below, I might answer you if it's photography-related (ha, ha).

1st test work feat. Manon Eple and Emma El Achkar Testing new things is vital to maintain and improve your skills, and to challenge your creativity. It is also the best time to allow yourself to fail with no consequences on your business. This is why I, from time to time propose test shoots to experiment with new ideas and try new tools. I've always been attracted to sports and especially athletics but never got the opportunity to meet or be part of a project involving such athletes. Last summer, I decided to update my website and to show more of my work outside dance photography. I needed new, fresh images to enrich my portfolio and decided to set up a few collaborations to have them ready for the launch of my new website in mid-September. On a side note, I wanted to keep my website up and running so the updates were made slowly all summer and the whole thing should be done in a few days. As you may have seen on social media, I am actually in the south of France on the French riviera, and I soon discovered there were actually a few athletes here that might help me make my first steps in Athletics photography. After thinking about what I wanted to do, I contacted a few of them and got to meet Manon Eple for a first photoshoot. Nothing crazy, we actually talked a lot about the sport and what we can do creatively. For the first pictures, I just captured a few portraits and tried to use flashes for a couple of action shots. It was a disaster for me, as I was uncomfortable with the randomness of the process. Placing lights and having control over them was a real challenge. None of the pictures made suited my tastes although Manon was doing a fantastic job! That's what I was referring to by allowing yourself to fail. Since it was a test shoot, these pictures are for us to learn and grow, with no client or brand to give account to. Manon Eple I learned so much during this first experience with Manon and decided to stop short our collaboration and give us a 2nd shot later this year. With this new experience, I was a bit more confident about my meeting with Athlete Emma El Achkar. I felt way better during this shoot and got better results at the end of this session. Although I feel I still need to practice my hand on this, I am glad I did it as it highlighted so many flaws in my photography. I am super excited to meet Manon again in October. I had time to think this through and have tons of ideas I wish to test with her. Huge thanks to both athletes, I am so happy to be able to still experience the first times in my life! How about you? Do you do test shoots? How do you improve your skills these days? Emma El-Achkar

Improving your skills is a difficult task. It is easy to get in that comfort zone and not realize you are killing your creativity. We are then stuck in a place with no room for growth and where we have stopped moving forward for a while without noticing it. The hard part is to notice it in time, the easy part is to react and get back on the right track. For me, things started when I realized I wasn't enjoying myself anymore. The process of taking pictures was becoming a habit and fun had left a while ago. My pictures, looked all the same, I wasn't willing to make any efforts on location scouting, getting new clients and I even became lazy in my edits. Money at the time was a huge concern for me. Photography is expensive if you are serious about it. Upgrading your gear, repairing your cameras and laptop, paying your monthly subscription for your insurance and editing software, and also self-promotion to a certain extent will cost you money. Add the taxes, and all the traveling you do to meet clients and prepare your shoots, and the list never seems to end... After 2 years of being in the business back in 2013, I felt I forgot why I got into photography in the first place. The joy of picking up my camera and capturing the world surrounding me in my own sweet way. Meet with other creatives, artists, to share learn and create together. Challenging myself every day by creating something new, getting out of my comfort zone, and taking the risk of failing or succeeding. Let me share with you a few tips to help you keep that fire alive! 1/ Build a personal project I love this one! Maybe the most valuable tip of the list and that is the reason why it is number one. Create something for you, with people you trust and that share the same vision. No client, or company whatsoever behind telling you what to do, you are free to do whatever you want. It sounds scary at first because it's hard to know exactly where to start, but that's the beauty of it, anything is possible. What is your dream location? Who do you want to work with? What kind of images do you wish to create? This takes time but it's the whole process that makes it great. Building from scratch is a project that means something to you. With my dance photography, I have a few rules that have never changed throughout the years. Staying true to the performance I am capturing, which for me means no photoshop to enhance the artist's performance, and create images that are "real". I still never photoshop my performer's body, and only remove when necessary distracting objects details... But I wanted to go further recently and cross that line. Without touching my model's body, I wanted to add elements in my pictures to give a more fantastic, surreal, fantasy feel to my images. This led to creating the image below needing the help of 4 people for the silk work, 2 Broncolor Siros L flashes, a performer willing to climb up a 4m50 Chinese pôle... and let's not forget a killer location. It took 6 months of preparation just for planning and authorizations and almost 4 hours for this one picture. I minimized the use of photoshop as I wanted to get most of the performance done in-camera. This is the start of my personal projects so I really hope to push it further. During preparation only, the excitement, the build-up until the final edit boosted my love for the art. 2/ Test shoots Something I used to do often when I started, and that I rarely do these days. Some say it kills the industry... I don't believe it does, only if you are stupid enough to exclusively work for free. I believe it's important to place a few of these here and there because it is the only time where you can actually test new ideas and gear without the fear of failing. This is also the time to become a student again. Looking for information on the web, blogs and behind the scenes, videos, to see if what you are about to test has been tested before and how. This is where you experience first times again and although I hated that feeling before, today it really fuels me knowing I am going to discover something new. I actually restarted my youtube channel for that last August. My goal now is to share some of my knowledge and experience in photography with you. Some of the future behind the scenes on my channel will actually be test shoots. I'll be sharing with you my first times and experience with new gear, new ideas, or even testing myself exploring new genres of photography. 3/ Explore new genres Yes, and this is also an important one directly related to point number 2. I am mainly known for being a dance photographer. But I have been photographing circus performers for years now and started shooting more and more athletes since last year. I also used to do portraits and decided to get back at it last summer. I remember when the opportunity of shooting a Muay thaï fighter presented itself, I was totally scared. How am I going to handle this? Sometimes you just literally got to jump inside the ring! I always wanted to shoot athletics. Never knew how and where to start. Searched in my area for athletes, pitched the project to a few athletes, and the meeting was set up. To be honest I don't think it's my best work but I learned a lot during these 2 sessions. Manon Eple (Nice - France) Emma El Achkar (Nice / France) 4/ Challenge yourself and play This is maybe the best way to improve your skills. Impose yourself to some restrictions. Do you really know your 85mm lens? Get out and shoot Architecture with only an 85mm lens. You will quickly understand why it is not the first choice for architecture photography, but this will force you to think and find new ways to use that particular lens. Do the opposite and use a 24mm lens or 35mm for tight portraits... Does it work? When and why? I even talked about this with other photographers that decided on a test shoot to only capture their model with their back facing the camera. I challenged myself once to shoot during that infamous mid-day sun. Trying to find ways to have a pleasant light by choosing the right location and the right poses for the model. With time, these become tools that will help you face any situation. 5/ Help and assist other photographers Another great way to learn and grow as a photographer is to see how others do it. The internet is awesome for that, but it is always better to do this in the real world. Reach out to your favorite photographer near you and propose your help. Explain why you wish to help him and ask him if he is ok with that. Some photographers will refuse, and you have to respect that, others will gladly welcome you because it will also be an opportunity for them for an exchange of knowledge. Be respectful to the photographer's work and do not interfere in his creative process unless he asks for advice. Bonus: Leave your camera at home! Sometimes, it is a good idea to leave your camera at home to do something else, something different for yourself. Hang out with friends, with your family, with your girlfriend, just spend some time outside photography. You can find inspiration in a wide array of things. Reading a book, watching a movie, traveling, learning from one's experience can spark a fire and lead to new projects and ideas. To conclude, don't get drowned by the business, and always remember why you decided to pursue a career in photography in the first place. If it was for fame and money, I am not sure you are in for the right reasons. Always be a student, if you stop learning, I believe there is something wrong. If you lost your joy in doing it, if there is no more fun, sit back make a pause and understand how you got up to this point. Be selfish for a moment and think of what you really wish for yourself. Hope this helps, like always feel free to share your thoughts on this. How do you improve your skills with time and fight creative slumps?

I am in love with martial arts and have always been. I am fascinated by fighters by their hard years of training, their patience, their self-discipline, and all these things that most of us won't have the courage to do and commit to. The rawness, the precision, and the beauty of Muay Thaï, Aikido, kungfu, and Karate leave me speechless. Martial arts have been on my mind for years and the idea of capturing such athletes one day was on my bucket list for years. 2 years ago it finally arrived and I tried my hands on a Muay Thaï / Kick-boxing session with fighter Steeve Valente . A memorable experience that left me wanting more. I had to wait until last summer to finally have my first Karate photoshoot! It all happened in Antibes with a European and World champion member of the French National team named Alizée Agier. An amazing young athlete that you should definitely follow during the years to come. My partner and I picked her up at the train station and headed straight to our location. We decided to go for an outdoor session early in the morning on the Cap d'Antibes. And yes we took out the white Kimono for a few shots! I used a Canon 5D Mark III and 1 Broncolor Siros L 800w to control my exposure and shoot against the sun. The use of HSS really helped me have full control over the exposure of my scenes. I deliberately let a bit of flare and natural light leak in my shots and of course played a little bit with water reflections on a few images. Alizée was fantastic, professional, efficient, and fun! But I didn't expect less from such an athlete. It took us a few tries as you can see on some shots in the BTS video, but that's because I am a perfectionist. I know I can be annoying sometimes, but when I have a picture in mind, I cannot leave my scene until I have it. Hope this is only the beginning, as this photoshoot gave me tons of ideas. We made it simple for this first one. Froze some action, a few portraits, and high kicks... Next time we will push this much further!

Am I quitting my work with Ballet dancers? No! My work these days has confused quite a few. Athletes have been popping out here and there in your news feed, and lesser ballet photos were shared on my IG. But what does this really mean? Why this sudden change? You can stop worrying if this has been a concern for you... I said it in different posts on social media, I needed some change. I kind of followed my own tips in my video, "how to avoid creative slumps and improve your photography". Diversification was necessary for me business-wise and creatively. But never in my reflection was there an option to quit Ballet photography. Anjara in the streets of Menton (France) - Lighted by the Beautybox 65 and the Broncolor Siros L (800ws) I am now in my 6th month on the French Riviera and my work with dancers continued with new locations last summer. Having the sea nearby and long hot sunny days was a big change for me! I got to meet the lovely Maeva Cotton from the Ballet de Nice and made my first ballet pictures on the French Riviera in the old streets of Antibes. I thought I could do more and had a few ideas in mind I didn't get to realize with maëva. So I waited for the right moment, the right people to create them. I didn't really wait long, as during the same period I stumbled upon 2 amazing dancers, Anjara Ballesteros and Alvaro Prieto from the Ballet de Monte Carlo. Divided our session in 2, the first happened in Antibes and the second in Menton. I love adding fabrics, and silks in my shots these days, and at the time, I was looking for colored flying dresses. Anjara makes her own dance skirts and told me she was able to make one within 2 weeks. Never thought her skirt would look this good! As a bonus, the color happened to be my favorite color. The results are beyond my expectations, I really love the work we made together. Just to clarify, Alvaro is her husband!... Just checking out if everything is in place...Lighted with the Beautybox 65 and the Broncolor Siros L (800ws) Anjara and Alvaro are 2 incredible down-to-earth individuals. It was a real treat to work with such respectful and talented dancers."InMotion" is not over, I am just taking my time to take it to the next level!

The final session feat. Melissa Chapski & Theo Duff Grant A short, too short experience to my taste... I always wanted to visit Amsterdam, know more about the Netherlands because all I knew about this country was the city of Heerlen. Why you'd ask? Because of the Hip Hop festival IBE, an amazing international Hip Hop dance festival that my partner and I covered 3 years in a row. But this belongs to the past, the trajectory of my photography career has changed and I wanted to visit Amsterdam as a tourist and as a photographer with my current projects. At last, it happened last summer! During this long weekend, I managed to organize a couple of photoshoots. One with ballerina Anna Ol near the Eye museum , another one on top of t he Amsterdam Hôtel with Tatjana Van Onna , and finally the 3rd photoshoot with 2 young dancers from the HET national ballet around the NEMO museum. Far from the crowd looking for light BTS shot with Melissa and Theo with the empty bridge! Improvised, a few hours before sunset in a really crowded neighborhood... the perfect ingredients for a fun shoot! Melissa Chapski joined Marlène and I in this fun game called "dodging the tourist". A game I hate to play, that actually doesn't exist but you get the idea. People don't get it or don't care whether you get the shot or not. Even if sometimes it takes them 30 seconds to wait, to help me have a clean shot. But Melissa was patient and knew it was worth it. This meant fewer pictures, more downtimes but we didn't have any other options. Theo Duff Grant then joined us later on just before the sunset for a few duo shots. The timing was tight but we had our shots! All the pictures were taken with the available natural light, with my Canon 5D Mark III. I would lie if I told you I wasn't missing my SirosL but hey, I discovered how much I loved just playing with my camera and my camera only. Melissa and Theo were amazing, I am blessed to work with professional, talented people. Should I do more Natural light pictures? You tell me.

For 4 years now I've been shooting performing artists and especially dancers. Thought I'd share my experience with you guys and maybe help you with your dance photography! For me there are 3 ways to shoot a performing artist: A/ Your first option would be to let your talent move and improvise and rely on your reflexes and skills to capture that perfect moment. This is maybe the best method for a dancer (and performer), as you let him go into a creative flow and give him or her the freedom to fully express him or herself like in actual performance. The drawback is that you deliberately sacrifice a precise framing and composition and you will have no control over the position, placement of the dancer, or on the resulting light and shadows on your subject. It's similar to photographing, covering live stage performances, or dance competitions. You have little to no control over your scene whatsoever and on what happens in front of your lens. B/ The 2nd option is to decide in advance what you want to capture in favor of precise composition. I usually discuss this with the performer beforehand... whether the talent is posing for me or executing a movement. Since I often work with strobes, we try our best to be as precise as possible with our hand, arm, head, feet, leg placements. Sometimes, the background is almost as important as the performer. I have to make sure everything works together. I've been shooting a lot with wide-angle lenses recently, mixing architecture and dance photography. The drawback here is for the dancer because he or she has to limit the performance to a really short movement and has to “fake” it in a way, to give the sense of a "real full"performance. C/ iThe 3rd option you have is a mix, kind of the best of both worlds! You let your dancer improvise in a specific area of your frame, and choose a particular moment inside the succession of movements you want to capture. Not a full performance but enough room for the dancer to express himself. This should give much more authenticity to the final shot. It's up to you to decide. None of these 3 options are perfect.. it depends on what you wish to create and what you feel comfortable with. Personally, I use B and C as option A is the main reason why I stopped covering live dance events (although I still do some from time to time) . I wanted to have more control over my scenes! So let's go deeper, how do I actually do it? Here are 9 tips that will help you improve yourself as a dance photographer. 1/ You may have understood by now that locations are important for me. They often guide me and help me choose the style, colors, and even the movement or pose of the performer! Once I found my location, choose my scenes, my composition, and framing, I tell my performer what impact I want them to have on the viewer, the feeling I want to communicate, the story, the atmosphere. Virgina Y César - artwork by Julie Chaffort (Toulouse - France) 2/ Once we have decided what to do, my next step is to Sync with my performer. I need to feel them, I need to get into their "flow".Sometimes it helps to impose a rhythm... Determine a beat so that you are making one with your artist. This will greatly help you to nail your shot. Claire Teysseire (Bordeaux - France) 3/ To help you with your poses and moves, Let yourself be inspired by your environment. Play with Frames, extend lines, create shapes. Also, check out my blog /video post on how to improve your compositions , it might help! Fanny & Noémie George (BNU Strasbourg - France) Maria and Santiago Giachello (Hôtel d'Assézat - Toulouse - France) 4/ Know your dancers and ask them what are their strengths, don't ask them to make crazy backbends or jumps to only discover a few shots later it's not their thing. I need to see them move and whenever possible, I try to watch videos of them if they have any on the web or even better I go see their shows. Shooting dancers for 4 years now has helped me have a deeper understanding of how they move and when and what to capture. 5/ Make sure the performance is "readable", ask yourself, do we actually understand what's going on? Where are the arms? The face? The legs? Do we understand what she or he is actually doing? Does it look like a performance, is he or she dancing, or does it just feel weird and look like he or she is falling or doesn't know what he or she is doing with his body? Have your artist check if technically the photo is good. When you shoot performers If they are not satisfied with their technique, even if the light is perfect and your composition top-notch, you have missed your picture! 6/ Be ready and ask your dancer only to perform when everything is all set. Do not push your dancer too far, keep them fresh. It can be physically demanding depending on the type of performance and the number of pictures you have to make. You don't want to injure your talent either or have them worn out during the first 15 minutes. 7/ Listen to your performer, please communicate, have them involved in the process, they're human beings! Make sure everything is alright throughout the process, I have seen so many photographers staying in their world hidden behind their cameras... This makes no sense! 8/ Get your camera settings right! What is your goal? What are you trying to capture? What exactly are you trying to achieve? You are shooting movement, do you need motion blur in your shot? Make it clear and don't make it slightly blurred or it will look as if you didn't know what you were doing. If you want to freeze movement get the right shutter speed to make it tack sharp usually above 1/1000thof a sec, or use your flash and choose your settings accordingly... I often use strobes for my pictures and I am actually working with 2 Broncolor Siros L depending on the situation I use the Speed mode to freeze movement with the flash or I use the HSS mode (Hyper Sync) if I want to freeze movement with my shutter speed. To summarize, think about your shots before releasing that shutter, you cannot show up on set without knowing what you are going to do! 9/ Make it fun! This is really important... if you and the people around you are not enjoying the process, it will affect your work. If every time you pick up your camera fun doesn't come with it... you might give a 2nd thought about developing a career in photography. I know there are a few elements in this article that deserve further development... I am working on it!

Maybe one of the most exciting projects I am working on right now... The development of this new series of images in exceptional and unique locations with performing artists has boosted my love of photography. On paper he does it does look similar to my "Inmotion" project, but here, we are going a bit further light, and we now use accessories. Fabrics, silks, smoke, and more will be on the menu and we will continue to push this further for more crazy and challenging visuals. I met Gillian Leopold a few months back and we already had an incredible first session together earlier last summer. We got along so well that I knew I would propose her something more personal later this year. It happened faster than I thought, while Marlène and I were scouting for new locations, I immediately mentioned the name of Gillian when planning this session inside the Villa EilenRoc. Finding locations like this one is not easy, and getting the authorizations can sometimes take several weeks. Thanks to Rachel Desbordes, one of the first people I met here on the French Riviera, I was presented to the right people and immediately asked for full access. Marlène and I quickly asked for a quick visit in order to prepare our shoot. The minute we stepped inside we knew we had to do something there. For this project, we wanted to take our time so we divided the shoot in half. We roughly worked 3 straight hours in the morning and 2 and a half in the afternoon. A long session that can be really tough to handle even for a professional performer. Repeating moves and jumps to nail the shot, are inevitable especially when we add flying fabrics and uncontrolled elements in the mix. The goal is, of course, to get it all in-camera and to have the use of photoshop reduced to its minimum. We mainly worked with 2 lights, 2 800ws Broncolor Siros L and 2 softboxes ( Beautybox 65 and 100 x 60 softbox) that were gridded when needed for maximum control. I also had the chance to work with the Canon EF 11-24 mm f/4L USM that I borrowed from Canon France for the occasion. I knew from the beginning I wanted to go "wide" on this one to include most of the environment in my shots. The Challenge was to play with the warping and slight distortion that these types of lenses give. I often use wide angles when shooting my performers and I always try to choose framings, compositions, and placements that will prevent them from having gigantic limbs. I will share more on this particular subject in an upcoming video, be sure to check that one out also! I would like to thank the city of Antibes, my friend Rachel Desbordes and Isabelle Pasquini for making this possible. This project is a team project, and as you can see in the video, I wasn't alone on this one. Huge thanks to Virginie and Guillaume for their help. Shoutouts to my beloved partner Marlène for the Behind the scenes video and support from day one. Thank you, Canon and Broncolor for giving me the chance to create with amazing tools. Tell me, are you using wide-angle lenses on your own projects? What do you think of the results of this photoshoot? Bonus, in case you wondered, the soundtrack was made by Soundtrack by ɃⱠṾḰ - DISSOLVE ME -

We are kicking off this week with a new video. Nothing new for my YouTube subscribers or for those of you who come back regularly. Another behind-the-scenes and kind of part II of a previous CrossFit photoshoot video uploaded last summer. Ornella Nicolosi and Kevin Rantrua are back but this time we are making this outside! I kind of got bored of shooting fitness and CrossFit athletes indoors or at the gym. I wanted to spice it up a little and wanted to see what it would look like to shoot them outside. I am trying my best to push things a little bit further each time but working outside has its risks. My lighting setup was supposed to be the same as the first session, as I brought with me my 2 Siros L... but unfortunately, we only got to use one. The weather wasn't great and the light was dull and flat so I needed a little help to shape my light and shadows to add the desired definition and depth to their bodies. Again make sure to check out the first session here , because the approach is pretty much the same minus one light. [ Check out also "How to light a ballet dancer with one light" ] The difficulty of course when shooting outside is the random light quality, and the wind was the reason why we were forced to work with a single strobe. To add some fun we decided to use smoke grenades. We only made a few tries but I got to admit, I loved it! Don't be surprised if you see a complete series of images with colored smoke in the future. Here are 3 of my favorite shots with a few specs and details. 5D Mark III + Broncolor Siros L and Beautybox 65 camera right ISO 200 - 85mm 2.2 - 1/800th 5D Mark III + Broncolor Siros L placed camera left ISO 250 - 44mm 6.3 - 1/640th 5D Mark III + Broncolor Siros L placed camera left ISO 250 - 70mm 5.6 - 1/500th What are your thoughts? Will you make your next CrossFit photoshoot outside? Consider subscribing to the newsletter to ensure you never miss a post and or course Rendez-Vous in my next article!

A few weeks back I shared a couple of pictures a little different from my usual work. 2017 was kind of a year of growth and change for me. In regards to my work, clients, and communication. copyright Louise Bille Recently, I decided to share more of my work outside dance photography. I even drastically slowed down my work with dancers and worked regularly with circus performers and athletes. My goal is to specialize in action sports photography with a little room for more adventurous creative fantasy personal work (I actually don't know how to name my personal projects! ). Dance photography has brought me so much throughout the years. I have learned everything I know today with the work I have developed with dancers. From mastering my tools to understanding light and composition, I would never thank enough all these amazing artists that inspired me and allowed me to learn my craft with them. But diversification was inevitable and I soon learned that sometimes some projects would only be possible with a certain amount of compromises. I wanted to work directly with ballet companies for a long time and still to this day never got to do it with full artistic freedom. Is it possible? I hope so. But for now, I feel companies are afraid of taking risks with photographers like me. Scared to mislead their audience? Tarnish their image and reputation? I believe this is a mistake as audiences need to be surprised and challenged. Am I just a guy pressing a camera button? I hope not, and if we are still stuck on this old debate, this in 2017, needs to change. I have been shooting rehearsals for dance companies, live events, and performances for years now. And although it used to feed me (literally) it is really boring to do in the long run creatively. When I first contacted the Geneva ballet It was a year ago. The timing wasn't right back then so it took a full year to finally meet. Although we didn't get to do what I wanted I am happy to have met the company at last and I really hope it will be the start of a long-term relationship. My partner and I, barely stayed 24h in Geneva, just enough time to meet the team, prepare, visit the location, discuss roughly the ideas, and actually shoot. We had less than 2h to make the shots but that's a common thing and although it bugs me every time I got used to it. Thanks to a wonderful staff and an experienced professional dance company, things went smoothly. Basically, if you know what you are doing, a lot of things can be done. These images were actually used to announce the show Callas by Reinhild Hoffmann. For all the images you see down below, I worked with a single 800ws Broncolor Siros L and the beauty box 65. My good old canon 5d mark iii did once again a fantastic job. Of course, I had my amazing partner Marlene to help me out! I would like to thank Philippe Cohen for trusting me and for bringing me to Geneva to make these pictures. Of course huge thanks to the staff and the entire Geneva ballet company. Can't wait to see what projects we will develop in the future together. Little BONUS, just before she left our shoot, I made this simple quick shot of the beautiful Ornella Capece:

Since last summer, I have been concentrating on specific projects in a few cities on the French Riviera. Cannes, Antibes, Nice and Monaco, 4 cities I barely know and for some, I had never visited! I was the new photographer in town and barely knew anybody in the southeast. We are now late October and although the situation has evolved, things move slowly... very slowly... I am still the new kid here trying to build projects! Finding funding for my creations, getting new clients takes a lot of work and a lot of time but I am now getting used to it. I try hard to keep myself in a creative flow, yes I've got to keep the juice flowing! There are hundreds of amazing locations in the south of France so after spending weeks listing the places that inspire me, I am now trying to convince them to somehow work with me. Cannes is kind of special and a lot of people know the city because of its movie festival and glamorous luxury hôtels that attract celebrities and their fans. So wasn't it logical for me to start there? My story with Gillian Started last summer when we first met for an outdoor session. I called her back for a personal project I wanted to develop inside the EilenRoc Villa (Antibes - France) and she did a fantastic job! On each of my photoshoots, I always try my best to get along as much as possible with the people I work with but sometimes it doesn't work. Gillian is one of the rare people on the French Riviera with whom it worked right away. For the 3 pictures I wanted to take on the Carlton Pontoon, I was happy to have her again by my side. We had to work fast as my idea was to get the shots before the sun was too high in the sky. The Carlton also gave us a very short window to work with, we had to leave the Pontoon at 9 am! Below is a few more info on my favorite shot of the 3! At first, I wanted Gillian to throw the fabric herself (Watch the BTS video) but it didn't work as I couldn't get a clear shot of the Carlton Hôtel behind and the random shape of the fabric didn't please me. So we decided to separate the 2 and have Gillian strike the pose and asked my 2 awesome assistants of the day to throw graciously the fabric. 5d mark III + a single Broncolor strobe camera right (Bare Bulb) 24 - 70mm F2.8 L mark II 24mm - ISO 640 - F5,0 - 1/800sec Of course, the Broncolor Siros L was in High-speed mode, I slightly bumped up the ISO that allowed me to choose a wider depth of field. Do you remember Lyria? No? It was 2 years ago at the Institut du Monde Arabe ! And here we meet again, far from Paris, further south and inside the legendary Palais des Festivals de Cannes. This beautiful white modern building was a must for my series so when I was granted access I was thrilled. The Staff of the Palais kindly helped us throughout the day and even lent us a fog machine! I brought with me for both shoots 2 800ws SirosL and captured all the pictures you see were shot with the Canon 5d Mark III. I would like to thank the amazing people at Canon France, that let me borrow the "Ginormous" 11 - 24 f4 L USM lens. Just like Gillian here is a few details on camera placement and settings of one of my favorite image of Lyria: 5D mark III + Canon 11 - 24 f4 L USM 18mm - ISO 500 - F10 - 1/1000sec The Goal was to mix Architecture and dance. The 2 Broncolor strobes are placed on the left and right sides of Lyria. I chose a high Fstop and a fast shutter speed to have everything in the scene in focus and to avoid any motion blur. This was possible by setting the 2 flashes in High-Speed mode. Backstage pic by G. Boiroux I will end this post with the usual list of thank-yous and there are a lot of people behind these pictures! Thank you, Cannes is Yours and the Palais des festivals for your help and support, especially Dany, and Nina. Thanks for the awesome fog machine, Ivan, you kind of saved my life (not really but it was really cool!). Thank you, Laura, Carla, and the entire staff of the Carlton Cannes Hôtel ! What is our next move together? Hope this is only the beginning. Thank you team Canon for that fantastic lens, I will make another blog post to talk about that beast! Shoutouts to the people at Broncolor for supporting me for 3 years straight now! A few words on the OKKO hôtel , for all you creatives out there on the road... The place is fantastic if you are in town for a quick business trip. Friendly, with everything you need to chill and work, definitely worth considering if you travel for business (or not) and look for a place to stay!

C’était il y a une semaine! Une récompense qui fait chaud au cœur, même si je n’habite plus en Alsace Hk Visuals est toujours officiellement Alsacien. Je reviens régulièrement sur la région car un bon nombre de mes travaux demeurent inachevés et je tiens à les terminer avant de me poser la question de quitter (ou pas) définitivement la région… Pour faire très court, COZE magazine est LE magazine culturel de Strasbourg et chaque année il récompense à travers son événement les “Hopl’awards” les acteurs culturels de l’année. Pour avoir mené de fronts plusieurs projets dans ma ville, d’ InSession , à InSession Live en passant par United Souls Alliance et l’association AlterNatives, c’est mon activité en tant que photographe qui m’a permis de me distinguer. Après avoir était nommé 2 fois dans la catégorie photo du mois les années précédentes, c’est dans la catégorie couverture du mois de mai 2017 et donc de l’année que ma photo avec Robin Ohl à l’Aubette fût nommée cette année. Après une première étape passée à ma grande surprise, j’apprends finalement la semaine dernière que je suis lauréat! Ce prix me touche pour 2 raisons et la première c’est qu’il vient de ma région. Strasbourg m’a vu grandir, et c’est dans cette ville que j’ai débuté la photographie. La 2ème raison est que cela fait des années que j’œuvre à me faire connaître chez moi et j’avais le sentiment que j’avais énormément de mal… Ce prix me m’a prouvé d’une certaine manière que j’avais tort. Malheureusement je n’ai pu être présent étant actuellement dans le sud pour divers projets. Mais j’ai la chance d’avoir mes parents à Strasbourg, et qui d’autre que mon papa pour aller chercher mon prix ? Crédit photo Sébastien North Je profite de cet article pour remercier COZE et les Hopl’awards pour cette distinction. Merci à tous ceux qui ont voté et qui m’ont permis de me hisser pour la première fois dans le top 3, merci le Jury de reconnaître la qualité de mon travail. Merci a tous mes amis et proches qui m’ont épaulé d’une manière ou d’une autre ces 5 dernières années. Merci à la ville de Strasbourg, la direction de la culture pour leur soutien, et Mr Mathieu Cahn en particulier. Merci à mes parents de me laisser réaliser un métier qui me rend heureux. Je garde le meilleur pour la fin, je ne serai pas l’homme et l’artiste que je suis sans ma femme… Merci Marlène. Une nouvelle page se tourne, une expo devrait prendre forme en 2018… On se dit a très vite?