Professional Imaging 2017: LIVE Photo Shoot Behind the Scenes Tethered Tools and the Fuji GFX



From 18th to the 20th March 2017  I was over in the Netherlands presenting at the Professional Imaging show in Nijkerk.

This was actually my first time attending Professional Imaging. I was super excited and a little nervous because I did something that I never, ever do or recommend, but i had to do it, I will tell you what i did soon.  Professional Imaging reminded me of a smaller Dutch Photokina, this was also my first  time presenting at the show at the LIVE THEATER  once a day for all three days of the show. The Live theater is usually  allot of fun and always a rewarding experience, I had  one hour to talk about Fashion and Beauty photography with a big focus on lighting, I had a gorgeous model to work with ROSA and Nadine was amazing doing make up and styling for all three days of the presentation. SoI changed things up instead of shooting with my XT-2 OR XT-1  cameras I had shot LIVE with before , I was given the opportunity by FUJIFILM Netherlands to test and shoot with a working FUJIFILM GFX 50SThe only other time I had the FUJIFILM GFX 50S was during 3 minutes at PhotoKina and it wasn’t a working prototype. Obviously I said yes, but  for my first presentation I had about 3  minutes to really go over the cameras menus. 
   

A detail photo of the 3.2 inches, 2.36M-dot LCD monitor of the new FUJIFILM GFX 50S
Eaguer photographic minds watching carfuly for the next piece of information that will help them jump start their carreer to the next level
I conected the FUJIFILM GFX 50S to my laptop which has two Sandisk SSD, that use to better process the images, using Tether Tools gear.

During the three days of the convention I talked about Beauty and Fashion photography,  focussing more on the Beauty part. I also made sure to highlight the importance of your makeup artist, hair dresser, stylist, model and assistants working as a well oiled team along side you. Last but not least I talked about how to light the model to create stunning pictures. 
For this last topic I gave a live demostration to show how a professional beauty shoot happens in studio even with all the unforseen technical difficulties. All the light I used was gracelessly loaned to me by Profoto and I used a Teather Tools Cable to conect the FujiFilm GFX 50S, that was loaned to me by Fujifilm Netherlands, to my laptop so the attendees could see the light effect live. 
Day One
On the first day I was gonna go with super clean natural makeup and after a quick five minute talk with nadine who is an amazing stylist and makeup artist and a last minute check at my saved mood boards on Pinterest she came up with a pretty cool concept with flowers, hair extensions and petals falling on the models face. 


I used a Profoto D1 with a Beauty Dish and a reflector on two simple setups.


Day Two


On day two our stylist nadine created a outrageous rose dress and an amazing  peacock feather and red rose headpiece and a giant red ribbon altho the second days look was beautiful executed and liked amazing if definitely had its challenges to light.

Me shooting Rosa with the new FUJIFILM GFX 50S mounted on a 3 Legged Thing “Albert”

To light this creation I started with a Profoto D1 with a beauty dish as key light at a 45 degree angle to take advantage of the beauty dish sweet spot. Later I added two rim lights with a Softbox RFI 1×3 each to make the creation pop.

For those who are not familiar with the concept of tethering, it is when you connect your camera to your computer via cable. With this method you can either control your camera through your computer wich is very handy if you are shooting tabletop photography and you have your camera in a complicated position or you can shoot normally via camera viewfinder and have the advantage of having your computer or laptop as a screen giving your clients and team the opportunity of viewing your photos in real time. For this presentation I used the camera on live view and connected to my laptop which was also connected to two large projectors on a live view stage so that attendees could see every light change and every effect live. For this I used a Teather Tools TetherPro USB 2.0 Mini-B 5-Pin Cable.

Day Three

On the last day I was surprised at the amount of attendees who were eager and ready to listen to my presentation at 10 AM. Nadine and Rosa, my creative Stylist and beautiful model made another gorgeous collaboration with some big and funky hair that this time had more focus and impact. For this I had to use more lights to make the look pop.

All the light I used during the three days was gracelessly loaned to us by Profoto

For this set up I used two Profoto D1 with a Softbox RFI 1×3 each as rim lights and kept one Profoto D1 with a beauty dish as key light.


Big Thanks to Kim Schotanus for the behind the scenes photos.