Over the last couple of years a lot of people have helped me out and gave me opportunities that helped me develop my skills in. Although I’ve still got a long way to go, I feel like those opportunities and people helping me out, did help me get where I am at the moment way faster.

So to me it’s more than logical, that when ever somebody asks me for help, I’ll try and help out where I can. The shoots always turn out to be a lot of fun and seeing somebody being super happy with the results is such a rewarding feeling! There is less pressure than shooting for a client and since most of the people are really passionate about “their thing”, it all feels really smooth and natural. So whenever somebody asks you if you could help, and you’ve got the time for it, go for it!

Recently I posted a preview picture of the shoot I did with Sirvan Ugur and her leather bag. She needed some photos for her final paper and presentation, so we went into the studio and out into town to shoot a couple of pictures.  On October 2nd, she held her final presentation and graduated with an 8 (out of 10)! So now it’s time to post some of the pictures, and even though they are different from what I normal do; it sure was a lot of fun to help her out!

Share the knowledge and spread the love!

Ivar

http://www.iamivar.nl – photos that love you!

Last week I received my new business cards from Moo (http://www.moo.com) and am, once more, happy with the results. The paper and print quality is perfect, the only comment I can make about the cards is that you do have to be careful with them. If you happen to let them roam around freely with other objects; the cards might not always walk away without scratches or tears in the foil. But then again, treat them carefully and they’ll stay in perfect shape.

The main reason that I went with Moo is that they allow you to use up to 50 different images to use on your card. For me this is a plus for the two following reasons.

If you, like me, think picking a brand of toothpaste is a hard task; try picking the one image you would like on your card for the next couple of months.

Now, you might be thinking: “What about the person having to pick one? Won’t they find it a hard choice?” Yes the do! But that’s a good thing; they’ll take some time to look at your images before slipping it in their pocket and dropping it in a box at home. This way they’ll see more of your work and your name will also stick with them longer, and that’s never a bad thing.

The bad thing is that you’ll go through your cards way faster; often people want to take more than one. Luckily Moo extended their package range from 200 to 400 cards, so you can play that generous photographer who gave them more than one card. For those who prefer Moo’s half size minicards, since last week they allow custom flipsides for those too. Yay.

Here are the ones I got this time; excuses for the crappy image, the gear is at the studio and the Netherlands have turned dark and gray over the last couple of days.

New cards, new email, new slogan and more exciting stuff in the pipelines.
The exciting times just don’t seem to stop!

Güle güle,

Ivar
http://www.iamivar.nl – Photos that love you!

Normally you wouldn’t find me doing product shots, I simply miss the interaction that I normally have with models. But yesterday was a special occasion, a good friend of mine, Sirvan Ugur, has been designing a bag as her graduation project. She asked me if I could help her take some shots for her final paper, some product and some lifestyle shots, so we dived into my new studio space and I found out soon enough that my equipment might have been a bit too much for this simple setup. But hey…if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing right?

Sirvan also knows karate.

After the studio shoot was done, we went outside to enjoy the warm late summer day and shot some lifestyle photos with the bags. I’ll post those later, after they’ve been published in her paper…she graduates October 2nd, wish her luck!

You might have noticed that I said that we shot this in my new studio, and I guess that deserves an own entry on this blog but here is a headsup. I’ve got access to one of the rooms from an old movie theater. It’s temporary for an unknown period, if people buy the building I’ll have to leave…but till then I’m going to make the best of it!

It’s been a while since my latest update, so here is a quick one.

At the moment I’m spending some time in Calgary, with my good friend Tyler Stalman (http://www.stalman.ca) and last week we had some fun shooting during the brightest hours of the day.  I must admit I’ve never been a big fan of shooting in those conditions.  But now I realized that’s because I never did it properly.

When using no light shaper, you’ll end up with blown out highlights and harsh shadows all over the place. Using a reflector ended up getting the light a bit better, but most of the times it still was too harsh and it looked unnatural.  Plus that it’s hard for the models to keep their eyes look normally when you’re blinding them ;-)

But this time we’ve been using a big diffuser to block and diffuse the hard sunlight, and the results are really good. Makes me wonder why I haven’t been using this more often, even after having used this technique a couple of times before. Guess I got sucked into using strobes a bit too much maybe haha.

Hanging out in the park.

So now I’ve decided to buy three 2m * 1.20m diffusers for my upcoming trip to Iceland, this is going to be fun!

ciao,

Ivar – http://www.iamivar.nl

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Here are two behind the scene shots from my most recent shoots.  Couldn’t resist jumping into the picture with my models.

So you really want to get yourself a boom stand because they’re super nice to use, but can’t invest a decent amount of money. After searching the internet for a while you find a nice looking boom that isn’t that expensive. Something like the Falcon Eyes Boom Set LSB-2 including tripod, or what ever brandname they’ve put on this generic boom stand. Looks like such a good deal, you can always get a decent one when you’ve got the money.

But unless you like sitting in the corner of your studio, crying, resist the urge to buy it. Put the money away and wait till you can get a decent boom stand. There is some budget gear out there that is really decent quality equipment, but this boom stand isn’t.

Okay, so now you are wondering what has this to do with you Ivar? Well, I wasn’t strong enough to fight of the urge and bought one. But as soon as I unpacked it, I regretted it; the build quality is really poor, all parts are cast plastic and the rods bend too easily. You can extend it to a decent height; but as soon as you put some weight on it, it will just bend and somehow it always ends up at roughly the same height!

Now that was a waste of money;  it was too late to return it. But last week I finally invested in a decent boom from Calumet and a Manfrotto Cinestand with wheels. Wish I had done this right away! Put it together today and took two snapshots to show you the difference.

This is the Falcon Eyes Boom and stand, if you look closely you can already see it bending.  Putting it up even higher would have snapped the either the boom or the stand.

This is the Calumet Boom on the Manfrotto Cinestand. It goes even higher; but my ceiling didn’t allow that. The wheels might not look like they make a big difference, but if you’ve even tried lifting a boom, you know they do. You simply push it around and don’t have to worry about lifting it and tipping it over. Another good thing about this boom is that it has a dial on the background, enabling you to rotate the head once you’ve got it high up in the air.

So if you are looking into getting a boom stand, save up and get yourself a good one; a good boom is absolutely worth it’s money.

Adios,

Ivar!

ps exciting shoot are coming up, some (hopefully) really cool own shoots and I’ll be shooting a cool advertisement for…aah let’s talk about that when the time is there!

As promised I would share some of my lighting setups, so here it is; my first lighting setup, enjoy!

Let’s start with what we want to achieve; a nice little red to black circular gradient behind the subject.

Even though this setup is really easy, a lot of people have been wondering how it was done. People thought I used a red background and photoshopped the vignette onto it, other people thought I used a black background and photogshopped the red spot onto it; but they were wrong.

Here is the breakdown of my setup;

1) Black seamless paper, I prefer paper over fabric;
2) 150ws strobe with standard reflector and red filter;
3) Model;
4) Me with camera on tripod*;
5) 500ws strobe with 90*90cm softbox;

See I told you this was easy right?

What happens here is that the spot with the red filter on the black background creates the red spotlight. The closer you move it to the paper, the smaller the spot will be and the harder the gradient will be. If you want a smoother and bigger one; move it further away.

! Be sure not to blow the spot (#2) out, it will look ugly.
! Use the modeling light on the spot (#2) to position the spot behind the model.

Use the softbox to create a nice and smooth lighting on the face of your model. In this case I used a 500ws strobe at about half power.

! Use the modeling light on the softbox (#5) to check the reflection on glasses / eyes / jewelry, other shiny stuff.

See? That wasn’t that hard right? And yes, you could have done this in photoshop, but personally I don’t like to spend too much time in photoshop so I rather create it while shooting. Takes a couple of minutes extra, but saves some afterwards. It’s either spending some more time in the studio with the models or alone behind the computer… ;-)

Have fun and don’t hesitate to ask questions if you got some.

If you would like to see a specific setup for the next one;  keep those suggestions coming!

Hasta luego,
Ivar – http://www.iamivar.nl

ps here is what happens if you turn of the softbox (#5) (Yes, this is another model..);

* If you are going to try this yourself, you can replace me with yourself or anybody else.

Last weekend was the kick off of Rotterdam European Youth Capital ‘09 with an event hosted by Yourworld. During this two day event, 300 youngsters (from teens to young adults) got the chance to go through a program where they would discuss and develop their own dreams.

The theme of the event was “Real life heroes”, think political leaders, musicians, sports people, religious leader, etc. Think people that made a change by living their dream. Upon arrival the youngsters were divided into a group with one of those heroes as symbol. The entrance room was decorated with printed and audio quotes from the various heroes. When entering the main hall, they could see 180 posters, 150 blanks ones and 30 with a portrait of one of the heroes.

And you might have guessed it, but the blank ones would be filled with portraits of them! So just before entering the main hall, they had to get their picture taken. All 150 of them, and in a 45 minute time window. And this is were I came into play, I setup seven small studio spaces and collected six other photographer to help out shooting. After shooting the portraits, they were sent to a DTP team who processed them and handed them over the print team. This is how it looked in the end:

A small selection of the final portraits.

Closeup of some of the portraits.

In the last picture you can see:
- two heroes, pre-made: Johan Cruijff (top left) and Bart de Graaff (top middle);
- the host, shot during the day: Nicolette Kluijver (top right) (who turned out to be just as friendly and funny as she is on television);
- three of the persons who joined the event (bottom row), shot during the day.

All went unbelievably smooth. In the end we only had to shoot about 230 portraits, but I’m sure even the full 300 wouldn’t have been a problem. So a thank you to those who’ve been helping out:

Thijs Kelder (Studio Ruwedata) who was head of the DTP team and my direct boss;
Mathijs Goorhuis and Joost ten Bruggencate (Mothership) who were making this all happen;

And last but not least, the photographers:
Marc Borger
Taufiq Hosen (Taufiqhosen.com)
Wouter Kersten
Hidde vd Lijn
Roland Pupupin (Pupupin Photography)
Christiaan Roos

As soon as I’ll get some pictures of the actual setup, I’ll post a message about the logistical side of the story.

Salut!

Ivar – http://www.iamivar.nl

On this blog I will be talking about my projects, be it upcoming or past projects. I’ll also be writing about some of the lighting setups I’ve used in my photos. If you have some photos that you would love to see broken down into a lighting setup, send me an email and I might discuss it here.

But first a short personal introduction.

I am Ivar!
Born on the 4th of july in 1983 in Lelystad, a small city in the Netherlands. It used to be at the bottom of the sea till the Dutchies decided they wanted some more land and got rid of the water in June 1957.  If the place where you will be born is fixed, would I’ve been a fish if I was born before June 1957?

Studied and worked as a graphical designer and webprogrammer for 5 years. After this amazing time, I decided it was time to check out all the other jobs available and see some more of the world. So I started taking on jobs in the local peanut butter factory, the IKEA, counting traffic, etc. etc. During this period I found out that I really enjoyed meeting people and hearing their stories.

While working at the webdesign company, I slowly started to get some interest in photography. In July 2005 I joined an event organised by iStockphoto in Prague. This was the first time working with models and lighting, it only took a couple of clicks before I realised that this was it: the best way to meet people and be creative.

Since that day it seems that they decided to turn the pool I was living my life in, into a wave pool. And they didn’t hold back on boosting the wave power. It’s been a crazy ride since then; being creative director on several international iStockphoto events, shooting and travelling to all corners of the world while meeting beautiful persons and creating new friendships.

The waves I’ve been riding have been getting bigger and faster ever since I’ve started out with my photography.  At this point the waves appear to be big enough to carry more people, so please jump in and enjoy the ride!

ciao!

Ivar – http://www.iamivar.nl

p.s. don’t be afraid to ask questions, I’m not afraid to answer questions.