Jan.C Photography

Romantic

admin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:04:17 +0000

Just a picture from my recent trip to Rome - it’s easy to take nice pictures in this city as (nearly) everything you see there is beautiful and worth being photographed. The light is also on your side; the ochres of the old buildings get more vivid in the setting sun and thousand years old stones reveal the finest details when lit the right way. The city is an astonishing show in itself. As usually, come to see more on my website, www.jancphoto.com.

California Dreaming

admin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:07:41 +0000

Today I’m publishing an example of my landscape work. This picture was taken in January in the sunny Southern California near San Diego. The surfers were climbing back up from the beach while the light setting sun was creating interesting effects by making its way through the humid air above the ocean.

Fashion Editorial in Paris

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:32:00 +0000

I have been contacted by a fashion stylist from New York, Olu; he was visiting Paris and wanted to have a few shots done with the Eiffel tower in the background or any other typical Parisian setup, showing his new clothing line. This was January so the weather is usually very cold but we were lucky and although it was dull and grey at least it wasn’t that much freezing. I used a simple hand-held speedlight with a lightbox to bring up more details and to pop the colors on the beautiful outfits of Nigerian inspiration.

Shooting in natural light

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 09:00:00 +0000

The previous post showed Don under Parisian soft gray weather. In this picture that I shot in Atlanta, GA, we had great sunshine - great? Well I love sunny weather but it is not usually the best light you can get for portrait shooting as the main source (the sun) is very harsh and casts hard shadows that rarely make a model look good. But if the light is reflected in a proper way the reflector becomes the source and its large apparent size creates a softer lighting for your model. This is a good example: Jerome is lit by a reflector that is held in the direct sun light by my assistant Habeeb. Note the soft shadow cast by Jerome as opposed to the hard shadows around that come from the direct sun. I also used the curves in Photoshop to rebalance zones with different contrast.

One more Don

admin — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Sometimes I shoot outdoors. In this case Don and I walked around Les Halles in Paris and took a few pictures with no additional light - just natural light. Check the pictures on my Facebook page; here is one that I liked because of the grey fall soft light; the overcast sky is one giant light box above the model’s head. I also liked the purple stickers on the glass doors and tried to play with them in this composition.

Back in a studio

admin — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Strobes are great but I enjoy working in a fully equipped pro studio as well; for some shootings and for commercial work I rent one that is here in Paris - Studio Blad in the 9th arrondissement. They have great Profoto lights and all things that make your life easier when you bring in models, such as a kitchen, a shower and a make up desk. All you need to do is bring your camera and voilà. Here I shot the singer Don L Castor from LA who now lives in Paris; I used 4 lights (again): the main one was a big octogon camera right, two strip boxes and a snoot that lights Don’s hair and spills on the background as well, creating this nice little aura around him.

More compositing

admin — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I keep using the Nikon SB-900 strobes for my shoots and I must say I am pretty satisfied with them; of course the power is not the one of an Elinchrom monolight (that I used before and still have it for e.g. photos of groups) but they can give you decent lighting (especially if you use several of them at the same time); interesting modifiers are not that difficult to find on eBay (and you can even DIY some more) and… they are portable and not dependent on external power. In the case of this picture I had the model, Ruben, over in my home studio so I could have used AC powered monolights but I really enjoy the strobes. Here I used four: one on each side of the model with a lightbox (square lightbox while ideally I would have liked to use strip lights), one behind to light the backdrop and one (main) with a beauty dish, on model’s left and above him. The rest is compositing with an old airline ad… More pictures on www.jancphoto.com or on my Facebook page.

Shooting at Saint-Cloud

admin — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:19:30 +0000

I was set to assist a friend and photographer for his “Spring Fashion” shooting in the beautiful Parisian park of Saint-Cloud and wanted to take advantage of being there to ask one of my models to come and join me after the shoot I was assisting. Just about when we were ready to start taking pictures after nearly 2 hours of preparation, make-up, hair dressing and styling, a police car stopped by and the cops told us we needed a written authorization to use the park for photography. We started arguing the pictures wouldn’t be used commercially but the cops called more cops and at some point we were facing about 5 or 6 cops who didn’t look like they wanted to pick-nick with us. Funny - they told us we were in breach with the rules while we didn’t even actually start taking pictures. Our intentions were criminal, they told us. And our model was certainly under age (it turns out she is 22), maybe even an illegal immigrant (not even…) and we looked suspicious anyway. So… there wasn’t much more to discuss, and as we didn’t much care spending the rest of the weekend in a police station we packed up and left the park. On the other side of the fence, just between the river and the highway, we realized we didn’t have a Plan B to find a shooting location. After about 30 hectic minutes when the stylist, the MUA and the models were on their way to get nervous we finally found a spot under a bridge over the river Seine. And… the location turned out to be fantastic. There were large boats anchored there, a wall that hid us from any further policemen patrolling on the road and the light was just perfect for what we wanted to shoot. So after sending a text to my model to cancel the shoot I finally called him to come to the new location and here is an example of what we did there. More on www.jancphoto.com.

Habeeb - again

admin — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:17:20 +0000

Habeeb was one of my first models years ago and he is a friend who now lives in Atlanta so every time I’m there we always talk about photography and sometimes even make pictures. This time we walked along Peachtree Street in Downtown Atlanta and the weather was freezing. I took this picture just while Habeeb was telling a joke and at the same time the wind was so cold that we could barely stay in the street without walking fast to warm up. So the picture was taken very quickly which gives it a very spontaneous and candid feel.

Afternoon with Eric

admin — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:37:37 +0000

During my last trip to Atlanta I had the opportunity to meet with Eric (check his Modelmayhem page here) and I tried some flash balanced sunlight snapshots with him. We shot this series in Midtown, close to a painted wall that I used as a backdrop. The sun was setting down so the light intensity wasn’t that strong and I could use just one Nikon SB-900 strobe held by my friend and assistant Habeeb. We used a translucent umbrella to diffuse the light. You can see the whole series on my website (see LOCATION SHOOTS section and then Portfolio Eric Ellerby).