Gerard Maas Images

Short listed for the EOS Magazine cover Jan-March 2009, reflecting on wireless flash techniques.
This image was possible thanks to the great collaboration between Evelyne, Daisy and myself.
Model: Evelyne Mertens
MU Artist: Daisy Van Winkel

-Gerard.

KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. What a great advice. I’ve a mind that likes to make simple stuff complex. It’s hard not to. But from time to time an image like this one reminds me that it only needs to be as complex as it’s required to get get the light where it’s needed to get a great image, not more.
You see? such a complex sentence to say something so easy:
As simple as possible: That is the best choice.

For this beauty portrait of Britt, only a Ezybox 60 with a speedlite 580EXII was used, high on top of her head, pointing at her face. Click. Done.
I think I like simple.

With almost one week entered in the New Year, it’s still a good time to extend my best wishes for 2009.

-Gerard

This is a ’see it to believe it’ kind of post. After the war of the pixels, the digital SLR Titans Canon and Nikon went on to the war of the ISO and the EOS 5D MKII is the Canon answer to the Nikon D3 field advance.
With an EOS 5D MKII in my hands, I had to test this high ISO feature in something else than the ubiquitous gray wall picture. I though of the night pavilion of our local zoo as the best place for such a field test. The pavilion is dedicated to the night crawlers from the nature and light levels are accordingly VERY low.

I’m truly impressed with the image results. On the original 5D, I didn’t go above ISO 400 unless I was really pressed to, and being a flash junkie that was not really often. But with this level of performance ISO 400 is the new ISO100. That’s very practical for extending the range of my speedlites as well… but that’s something to explore in the MKII version of this post.

While image performance is great, at this extremely low light levels AF becomes nearly impossible. Even manual focusing was difficult as there was almost no contrast between the subjects and the dark background. Sometimes I just had to guesstimate the focus point and hope for the best.

Here are some images comparing the high-end of the ISO range. This guy, an Indian Flying Fox, kind of scared me. Luckily it was behind glass. I hope I don’t see it banging at my window at night…

Happy New Year 2009 to all of you!

-Gerard

As a kid I always wondered plasma lamps and the wonderful light patterns they create with the touch of the finger. Of course, all those stores had a sign saying “don’ touch”, but who cares?
Last Christmas (2007) I casually saw one of these lamps during my quest for xmas gifts and decided to fulfil that old dream. Of course, as with all other light sources that I’ve found, the first thing I tried was to take pics of the plasma light… with a big disappointment: It produced far too few light for the fast shutter speed needed to capture the rays, so it was all a big ball of blur.

This Christmas, with the high ISO feature of the new EOS 5D MKII, that reality changed. I re-explored the plasma light with a totally different result. Using ISO 6400, the rays of light are crisp just like the eye experiences them.
I still love the mystery it creates.
-Gerard.

Experimenting with something different is a two sided coin: A risk of failing and the ONLY way to break usual patterns and grow your artistic vision. “Failure” is on itself a success when you learn from it and contributes to your growth, so in turn it’s a win-win situation each time you cross the barrier of the comfort zone. Of course, that’s personal growth, but when working with other people there’s an additional element to take into consideration: expectations. People you work with like to see good, nice results. Then failure is not an option, would you say? How do you grow, then? That win-win situation from the beginning is turned back to the flat line of the comfort zone just because of the expectations from others.
How to manage both? One method I’ve found practical, is to move in and out of your comfort zone in a way that you can manage and fulfil the expectations of your work and at the same time grow your artistic value. For a photo shoot this translates in getting a couple of good images in the pocket and then moving to the exploratory areas. Just make sure you have a good idea of what to explore, not to make the other party nervous.
Communication is a key enabler in this process.
So, get the creative juices going, just know how to control the flow.
-gerard.

Some people swear by natural light for natural subjects, but in a place like Belgium, you are better off if you take your light in your pocket. This photo of an anemone was taken using an Ezybox Hotshoe powered with a Speedlite 580EX. Note that I’m using the recessed border of the Ezybox to flag the background from getting illuminated. That way the flower gets ’soaked’ in light while the -otherwise busy- background gets obscured into a second plane.

In this setup picture you can see how cold and miserable the day was.

Always take your light with you.
-Gerard.

Exploring a bit beyond the initial ‘ focus on the eye’ images that we produced at the beginning of the shoot. By pulling the focus to the make-up in between the eye and the eyebrow I find that you can better appreciate the detailed make-up work of Daisy and the rest of the image takes on a dreamy, peaceful look.
Make-up: Daisy van Winkel.
Model: Annelies
Copyright: Daisy Van Winkel and Gerard Maas.
Light info:
One 580EX in an Ezybox Hotshoe 11 o’ clock with the camera at about 6 o’clock .

My living room is not very big, but with some improvisation and the compact form of the speedlites, it’s possible to create some interesting portraits. In this shoot, the make-up artist Daisy van Winkel said “I’m going to make it interesting for you… I hope you like it shinning”. Then, the clockwork started turning on how to cope with a highly reflective make-up and make it stand out.
My solution was to surround the model with light, ‘wrapping’ her with light all around not only in the left-right-up-down plane, but also mixing directions from the back and the front as you see in this “aereal” of the setup:

I don’t know how it all fitted there, leaving still some room for her to stand in front of the ad-hoc Ikea background. We had to jump around the light stands to move around but it’s all part of the fun
Thanks to Delphine for the modelling.