Beauticiun by Hestiun - car shoot

Had to shoot a car in about an hour on a shitty part of the Marbella beach. (why do photographers always lacking time??). This was for a client of mine who is a highly mobile Beautician making house calls for the whole scala of beauty treatments. She just got the car and needed a photograph for an upcoming wedding fair (the one with the bride I shot some time ago) to show her mobility. The weather was not that good although we had some nice clouds coming in to help creating a nice sunset. Light was pretty flat when we started. I had a medium softbox with 1 SB-800 flash coming just from the left of the car lighting up the makeup-box and a bit of the side of the car. Top of the roof and bonnet is natural light coming from the setting sun. Camera right I aimed another SB-800 with a diffuse dome to light up the front. Flash values were about the same. Obviously it has been post processed quite a bit, with some High Pass at the end. I am pretty pleased with the result and so is the client thankfully.........V

Alternative weddings

I gave up on doing weddings, just don´t like doing them. Besides considering the competition here on the coast and the outragious price differences, I think that market is corrupt. Anyway, I met a lovely Dutch coming from my hometown owning 2 bridalshops here and is organizing a massive english spoken bridalfair in November in Fuengirola. I decided to help her out with the commercial images for the print campaign and billboards....this kind of wedding photography I like :P

Flamenco Catwalk

I´ve been at the SIMOF 09, THE Flamenco fashionshow, held in Sevilla together with my dear clients Isabel and Antonio from the magazine BodaNova. They asked me to photograph the catwalk of young Fuengirola designer Melisa Lozano with some cutting edge, rule breaking designs and color patterns. A cool day out, hanging out with them means meeting people, cocktails and of course some great food afterwards.

Melisa invited top-model and ex-Miss España 2006 Elisabeth Reyes and Flamenco singer Diana Navarro amongst the 'regular' models.......damn, I love doing this!



Model & ex Miss España 2006 Elisabeth Reyes







Diana Navarro


Elisabeth Reyes, Melisa Lozano and Diana Navarro

DIY Striplights and Foodshots

I shot a food-assignment for a really nice restaurant here on the Costa del Sol, Tiki Tano. Their German Top-Chef prepared some dishes for us to photograph (not to eat unfortunately, bugger).
I started by setting up my 'big' multiblitz monohead (600 w/s) but I found it actually too big/much light and since we had to move around to different locations in the restaurant. I decided on the minimalist strobist approach, which I came to love over the last year. Meaning: I set up a sb-800 in the back, camera-right, 1/2 cto (to warm up a bit), shot through 1/4 spun (sort of a loosely knitted type diffusing material), set at 1/16th power. They other sb-800 was covered with a DIY striplight. I made the striplight (softbox that brings out a thin strip of light) myself out of a half umbrellabox (so I got 2 striplights), made a hole in the back for my sb-800 to fit in and made a large opening opposite. Covered the inside with alu foil and filled it loosely with some spun to spread the light more and closed the opening with 3 layers of tracingpaper, voila striplight as invented by Bert Stephani of Confessions of a Photographer (It really works Bert). The striplight was also on 1/16th power. Both flashes were triggered by Elinchrome Skyports. I attached the set up sketch as well...

Miss Bellydance Marbella 2008

I did a job in a nigthclub in marbella last week. "Miss Bellydance Marbella 2008", commisioned by the talented Anandi. It started a 1 a.m. till 4 a.m. I shot in the worst possible light conditions; dark-wood environment, black stage and vari-lights as keylights. The first time I shot bellydance I shot it in a theater with 2 strobes on either side of the stage. NO GO with flashes this time, apparently they got off wrong on their choreography due to the flashes. This time was a lot better they shot 5 beams from the vari-lights aimed at the feet of the dancers (otherwise they get off wrong in their choreography) so basically you could not see shit. Tremendous differences in contrast.....oooofff ugly stuff. I was happy to use my D700. Put it on automatic iso-exposure (lens on 2.8 and the cam looks for the best iso on 1/100th sec). All in all not the best and fun job, but I think I managed to squeeze out a few good ones....
btw, no shots of bellies in the blog (I find bellydance bellies not very attractive)

Dry Martina

Being on the road lately for a travelguide, got me a legit reason to go party-while-shooting or shoot-while-partying (luv those assignments), which I fully did of course. Being a sucker for (live) jazz music, its one thing I truly miss down here in Spain. I grew up with the annual North Sea Jazz Festival in my native city. Anyway after getting comfortable (aka a few beers) I went into this nice bar in oldtown Marbella, while just having a blast portraing people this spanish trio on stage started to play. Simple setup: vocals, amplified acoustic guitar and a slidetrombone..............wow some good old Kansas City style jazz filled the room. That girl could sing and tha boys could play!! 2 sets of absolute fun. Could not help myself photographing them.....

horses

Just came back from the first part of a trip through west andalucia for a dutch travelguide...just loaded the pics in the computer and had to do an edit on one of them, I think it works out really nice! Shot in Bologna and post-edited in lightroom and a bit in photoshop

I post more later, bit busy on the moment
Take it easy

Spa

We went on assignment for the Spanish wedding magazine Bodanova for their Spa article. The model never showed up so my assistant became also the model after the initial setups. All the shots were fired with elinchrome skyport radio triggers


A sb-800 strobe with grid was atached to a bar right opposite the model just above the water, another sb800 next to the camera for ambient light and the third strobe behind the glass wall creating a big hotspot Nikon D700 f2,8/28-70mm. 1/40 f2.8 iso 640


one strobe behind the models (hey that includes me) and the 2nd one for abient light at the other side of the glass wall, Nikon D700 f2,8/80-200mm, 1/40 f2.8 iso 640


in the far right up corner a sb800 for the wall and some ambient, 2nd sb800 with grid for the models face. Camera left a 3rd one for ambient, Nikon D700 f2,8/80-200mm, 1/60 f2.8 iso 400


A sb800 low aimed at her legs and a second one on the right for ambient, the sunlight backlit everything for separation and ilumination of the water, Nikon D700 f2,8/80-200mm 1/60 f2.8 iso400


just one sb-800 pointed up at the ceiling for ambient non-directional light
Just with my really old f1.8/50mm out of hand, 1/40 f1.8 iso 400

Feria de Mijas - procession

The annual Fair of Mijas was held from the 7th Sept. till the 11th lots of food, drinks and party, with some great names on stage every night (lack of time to photograph this year) and of course the Holy Procession of the Virgen of the Rock (Virgin de la Pena). The local newspaper called me to register the 5 hour procession on holy Monday. So put on my walking shoes to be ready for the very slow long walk to hopefully create some nice pictures to run in the paper. The trouble is that all these procession have been done for ages and its hard to find a new angle..... D700 with F2.8/28-70mm & f2,5/105mm