Flickr Klub Karlsruhe

14Feb/121

14th lightGIANTS Friday night shoot (last shoot for 2011) “A bit of everything”

The last shoot for 2011 was was a bit of a mix. The first theme was a body builder who transformed over the night from someone in a business suit to a masked Mexican wrestler. Secondly we had 2 new models strutting their stuff, they also mixed it up a bit with body builder.

A special thanks to our models |links| for a great job and putting up with all out crazy ideas.

Tom Lorenzen

Phillip Dehm

Christian Konrad

We only use 1 basic light set up but changed light formers during the evening. The was we could have a similar fell and flow through the photos but have different looks and affects to match the situation. As the evening went on we added a smoke machine and coloured filters to the hair light this changed the atmosphere of the images witch was planned as a part of the transformation over the evening. Also that way we didn't have to adjust the key light.

Scott Lewis

Thomas Reimann

Stefan Janeschitz

Marco Spalluto

Well that almost wrappers up the last shoot of 2011 Thanks every one who participated and contributed to all the work shops in 2011 but what we have planed for 2012 will be even bigger and better......

And finally the world famous making of video.

Tagged as: "How to", aperture, beautydish, Blende, blick, blitz, body builder, bowens, cam, Canon, composition, creative, diagram, erfahrung, Exposure, flash, flickr klub karlsruhe, foto, friday night, gemini, germany, Girl, Heavyweight, help, Karlsruhe, kranke Schwester, lightGIANTS, Lucha libre, Mask, mexican wrestler, Monoblock, Nikon, photo studio, setup, shooting, smoke machine, Softbox, Sony, striplight, Strobe, studio blog, transformation, trigger, Ulli, workshop 1 Comment

25Jun/110

7th friday night shoot “Beauty-Dish vs. Soft-Box” [review]

While we were doing the "Studio 101" workshop the topic of different light modifiers came up a lot. So we decided to run a workshop based on that exact idea "Beauty dish vs Soft box". The concept was simple, we set up a large soft box 45degrees to the model and took a few photos. Once every one had taken a few photos we swapped the soft box for a white beauty dish, then a silver beauty dish and finally a silver beauty dish with a honey comb grid.

Caroline, A dress maker from here in the area modelled her fantastic hand made Tudor period dresses for us. Thanks for the fantastic work and amazing dresses.

Silke

Laura

Thorsten

After everyone had tried out all the different light formers and we had discussed the differences it was time to get down to some serious shooting. We set up the "Pseudo Light ring" again and spend the next hour or so getting some fantastic shots

Matthias

Scott Lewis

Markus Wochele

As we didn't move the lights around much there isn't a lot in the way of lighting diagrams this time, due to the fact that we simply changed light modifiers so we could compare the differences.

And las but not least our behind the scenes video and a group shot.

20Jun/110

Photowalk Rastatt – Flickr Klub Karlsruhe

On May, 7th 2011 the Flickr Klub Karlsruhe has organized a photo walk in Rastatt, with a BBQ afterwards. Since the lightGIANTS have emerged from this group, we naturally want to tell you about it.

The conditions for this Photo Walk could not have been better, the temperature rose to nearly 28 °C and the sun took care of plenty of "available light". Before the walk, we all have met at my place (Stefan), so the meat and drinks for the BBQ party later could be stored and cooled.

Overall, 15 people have registered to come, of which all have appeared. After a brief welcome, we started directly with the Walk. We walked along the river "Murg" to the other side of the city.

by istefan™

Some other key points of our walk were the "figure garden" at the employment office, the Pagodenburg, the water tower and the chapel of Einsiedeln. The last stop was the newly renovated residence castle of Rastatt. The following group picture was taken there.

by Dragoş

We really had a lot of fun on this photo walk. And the subsequent BBQ was a great completion of a beautiful day. I always find it very interesting to exchange views with other photo enthusiasts, and discovering new or different perspectives. Also getting to know new techniques (eg, infrared photography) in a pleasant atmosphere expands your own horizon.

Here are a few of the images which were created on this day:

by skynex by Tiffie by Silke

From my experience countless images are taken on those walks, which you naturally want to share with friends and your fellow photo walkers. For this purpose Markus Wochele has discovered a very good tool for our website. It's called ZenPhoto. With this tool each participant has access to our gallery via a username / password and can upload his/her pictures.

We also use this tool for our lightGIANTS workshops which take place every last Friday of the month. Here, the workshop participants can upload their results to share them with us and the models. This eleminates the annoying sending or troublesome downloading of images from various platforms. You can also download an entire folder as a zip file and do not have to select each file individually.

Tagged as: aperture, beer, Blende, blick, Bokeh, Camera, Canon, composition, creative, Depth of field, erfahrung, Exposure, flickr klub karlsruhe, fun, Karlsruhe, Nikon, outdoor, photo walk, Photography, photowalk, Rastatt, Sony No Comments

24May/111

6. friday night shoot “Studio 101″ [review]

At the request of a "Serbian Anarchist" I (Scott) organised a studio workshop for people that had never been in a studio before. The idea was to cover the complete basics and build up a few different lighting set ups 1 light at a time so that they could see the effect each light had on the image.

We spend the first 30 or 40 minutes talking about different light formers, triggers, soft light, hard light etc. Later, as we started to shoot we covered the position of the light in relation to the subject distance, size, brightness etc, as its easier to understand when you can actually see a few practical examples.

Deana Maksimović-Vidanović

Tim Schuler

Carlos Morra

As each light set-up was built 1 light at a time you could see the difference that each strobe made as it was added to the image. This way it was easier to explain the roles of a Key light, Fill light, Hair light etc as the lighting became more and more complex. But sometimes I got the feeling that they wanted to maybe move along a little faster than I could set up the lights

Stefan Janeschitz

Scott Lewis

Markus Wochele

We used a lot of different basic set ups with 1 or 2 strobes normally a Key and Fill light or Key and Hair light. theses all culminated in a more complicated light setup combining 3 or 4 monoblocks. And for a grand finale we built a very unique set-up, a "pseudo ring light" that we dubbed "Flower light" because the catch lights in our models eyes look a lot like a flowers.

A special thanks to our 2 models "Tiffie" and "Oxanna" for doing a wonderful job. All in all I had a very fun night and we had a lot of laughs, now for our world famous making of video...

...and a group shot.

Tagged as: "learning by doing", "No Models were hurt during this production", bowens, flickr klub karlsruhe, gemini, get i, lightGIANTS, lighting diagram, Softbox, Studio lighting Karlsruhe, sylight, Tiffie 1 Comment

6May/116

Absolute Beginners

Wow this is the first blog entry written by someone other then one of the four lightGIANTS .... Thank you "D" for writing such a cool guest blogpost...

By: Deana Maksimović-Vidanović

The Friday night “Studio 101” workshop at the lightgiants studio was my first studio experience. The only studio time I’d had before was sitting to have my passport photo taken. When Scott suggested we do a beginner’s workshop, I jumped at the occasion, together with Carlos and Tim – old acquaintances from the Flickr Klub Karlsruhe.

I started being interested in photography around 2003 but it wasn’t until 2005 that I joined Flickr. After a few years of experimenting with different genres, mostly street photography and urban landscape, I started to concentrate on portraiture, and after my daughter was born, on child photography.

I shoot almost exclusively available light. I find its limitations challenging and believe that an atmosphere of a photograph taken with natural light is something that a studio shot lacks. I won’t claim I was proven wrong last Friday, but my first studio shooting was a very positive, fun experience and I’d gladly do it again.

Before we started, Scott explained the basics – how to set the lights, where to stand, where to place the model, how to set the camera. I realised that setting a studio surrounding takes a lot of precise work – calculations need to be made, you have to keep in mind the physics of light and space at all times. On the other hand, once you’ve learned the basics, you can set your imagination free. Two light sources? Why not three? One of our settings consisted of a softbox in front of the model, a harsher, more direct light at the back, and another smaller light source on the side to lessen the shadows. (Almost) anything goes!

Our models were Tiffie and Oxana and the first light setting was high-key, with a white backdrop. I prefer a more discrete light and a darker surrounding, so my favourite setup was with a dark red background and a frontal triangle of strip lights that created an unusual reflection in the models’ eyes. The girls were very patient and managed to keep smiling for three hours! A model’s job is not as easy as it seems, after all.

I’ve learned a lot – not just the technical know-how, I’ve also learned to appreciate the effort that goes into organising a studio shoot. Our hosts put a lot of love and enthusiasm in what they do. I’m already looking forward to the next workshop and I’m sure there are many more people who would like to learn about shooting in a studio – why not turn this into a regular course? With such good teachers, the waiting list would stretch all the way to France!