Good Light Magazine Issue 02

I s s u e 0 2 - G o o d L i g h t ! M a g - T h e N e w W a y o f P o r t r a i t P h o t o g r a p h y

Issue 02 - Good Light! Mag - The New Way of Portrait Photography

Your Lighting Setup by Ariel Cohen

Instant Portrait Light by Michael Zelbel

You Get What You Pay For by Jacques Rattaz

5 Questions for Michael Zelbel by Sebastian Stelter

G o o d L i g h t M a g . c o m

Contents FEATURES One Location, One Model, Two Looks By JEEAN ALVAREZ

Your Lighting Setup! By ARIEL COHEN

Instant Portrait Light - a Flash in Your Shopping Bag By MICHAEL ZELBEL

You Get What You Pay For By JACQUES RATTAZ RATTAZ

Quicktip: The Sunny 16 Rule By SEBASTIAN STELTER

Waterfalls - One Light Setup By SARAH PULVERMUELLER

Reponsive Wordpress Themes For Photographers By SOPHIA FROMUTH

Helicon Filter - A smart toll for low budget By HANNO KNIERIM

5 Questions for Michael Zelbel By SEBASTIAN STELTER

Contents FEATURES One Location, One Model, Two Looks By JEEAN ALVAREZ

Your Lighting Setup! By ARIEL COHEN

Instant Portrait Light - a Flash in Your Shopping Bag By MICHAEL ZELBEL

You Get What You Pay For By JACQUES RATTAZ RATTAZ

Quicktip: The Sunny 16 Rule By SEBASTIAN STELTER

Waterfalls - One Light Setup By SARAH PULVERMUELLER

Reponsive Wordpress Themes For Photographers By SOPHIA FROMUTH

Helicon Filter - A smart toll for low budget By HANNO KNIERIM

5 Questions for Michael Zelbel By SEBASTIAN STELTER

Your Lighti Lighting ng Setup! 3

One Location, One Model, Two Looks By JEEAN ALVAREZ

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One Location, One Model, Tw Two o Looks 4

For my shoot I wanted to create two different looks with the same equipment in the same location. The photos were taken at a harbor which is close to the model’s residence. In order to know everything about my “workplace“ at the actual shooting day, I inquired the location beforehand. If you

bikini for a nice natural look. I always bring along a wide range to my shoots so I have an alternative if something’s missing. You may have realized that the white leggins are missing on the nal result. Where

The Shooting

have they gone? Well, whilst testing the lights I thought that the white hotpants didn’t achieve the result I was hoping for. We looked through our shooting suitcase and we decided on the jeans hotpants which matched way better better..

The rst pic should look a little bit

Getting outts for your shooting isn’t

work in an ofce, you know all about

it as well, so gather all information about a shooting location if you’re not going to shoot in a familiar place.

fashy and sexy at the same time whilst the other one was meant to show the natural look of the model. Both shoots took place at the same time of the day. We started at half past seven on a delightful evening. I love to shoot in the dusk – there’s there’s no blazing sun and I can create my own light. So this was the perfect time for me. Blinding sun is unfavorable for shooting; the model squinches her eyes and it’s not easy to get a relaxed facial expression. I arrange my shoots very ver y carefully. carefully. For this shoot I previewed the outts and

the styling together with the model Sara-Joleen and the make-up artist Ira Sam. We decided on a black bra and black leggins. Along with Sara-Joleen’ Sara-Joleen’ss black hair the outt contrasted the

paving stones and yellow stripes which looked amazing alltogether. For the second idea we chose white hotpants, brown boots and the top of a

as hard as you might think. think . You You could ask your model whether she had clothes she’d like to bring to the shooting; she’ll pack her favorite things for sure. The good thing is, she’ll feel comfortable in her own clothes. If you want a wider range of outts, just go ahead and ask your

sister or your friends to provide you with cool accessories and clothes for your shooting. If you put aside some money for your shooting you could also meet up with your model and go shopping together. For me, it’s very important that the model feels comfortable. It makes work easier for me and it provides a more pleasant atmosphere. I asked Sara to go up and down the path. I told her something amusing at the same time and she began to laugh. This was just the perfect moment for me to push the shutter release button and her gorgeous smile was captured

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One Location, One Model, Two Looks 5

on camera. If you are no born entertainers, ask an assistant or a friend to help you out. An easy conversation could be enough for your model to feel comfortable. In addition, she doesn’t see you simply as a photographer with a camera at the eye and it’s not completely quiet. Imagine you’d have to pose in complete silence for half an hour, an hour or even longer and your photographer doesn’t say a word and the only thing you hear is click click click. You’d get bored pretty fast. You could also bring some music to the shooting location. I like working with some good music in the background and if the model agrees, there’s nothing that could come between you and your shooting party. ;)

I Love To Play With Different Perspectives. Give It A Try! The upright picture I took laying on the ground, the horizontal one I took left of the model or above her, that makes the person taller and the legs don’t seem so compressed. For the black & yellow shot I was standing and the camera was positioned above the model. Just try it yourselves! Let your model pose in a comfortable position and take your photos from different angles. You can choose the perspective you like most at the PC later on.

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Light Setup The shooting was outdoors. There was no electricity, also we had no car. So a battery ash system, which is very portable, was the best choice. I took the Elinchrom Ranger Q and used it with two A-Heads. One of them was tted on

an Octabox (90cm / 36”) as main light.

First Light Setup (Landscape Format)

Second Light Setup (Portrait Format)

•I put the keylight above the model for a attering light, therefore I used a deep octabox (90cm / 36”). •The second light, a Quadra A-Head, had the single task to illuminate the background.

•For a natural look, the main light stood slightly above the model. •An octabox (90cm / 36”) acted as the keylight. •The other light was placed behind her to light her beautiful curly hair.

Background Story There’s one little background story I’d like to tell you about this shooting. The pictures were taken relatively at the beginning of the shooting. The day and our shootings lasted some hours longer. Because we arrived by train, we actually had to decide to nish the great shooting somewhen in order to catch the train

in time. Good thing was, our model Sara-Joleen offered us to spend the night at her apartment and so we stayed and I shot until the morning arrived.

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After a few hours of sleep and a great breakfast we packed our things to go home. A few meters away from our house we noticed the smell of smoke. We went in and the whole building had this scent. But the apartment was okay and so I checked on the internet to nd out if something had happened here.

Strange, I know. In fact, our residential building where 50 people live in had burned from the basement up while we were at the shooting but 60 remen were able to stop the re. Unbelievable, right? This shooting will denitely stay

in my mind. Photography changed my life – again. This time in a very unusual way for sure. JEEAN ALVAREZ (whose civil name is Gerrit Grosshans) discovered his passion for photography in the year 2009. Especially, he lets this passion slip in his people & lifestyle photographies. Experiencing people, communicating with them and catch them in his pictures is a similarly intensive experience as life itself. Dortmund is the central location for his life and his work. Spotting new sites of action however is an important part for his “fresh view”. These new perspectives always reveal new facets in his photographies which become parts in his photographic repertoire. Photographer: Jeean Alvarez, is a People & Lifestyle Photographer who is based in Germany. More info at: www.jeeanphotography.com Model: Sara-Joleen Make-Up Artist: Ira Sam

A Cookbook for Improving YourBoudoir Photography This eBook features 74 pages full of recipes for awesome photography in any bedroom • use simple and absolutely reliable lighng setups • return from your shoot with posh professional photos • make your boudoir models really proud

Packed with aconable ps and tricks In the ebook I walk you through the way that I perform my boudoir photo shoots. All you need to do is follow the 6-step approach that I provide you with: 1. basics like the right lighng gear and lenses for a bedroom 2. lingerie and clothes which work vs. things that do not work 3. the lighng setups which deliver the best results 4. poses for every model, from standard to creave 5. how to nd the best camera angle the common mistakes to avoid

Findout about this book at Boudoir.cc

Your Lighting Setup! 9

Your Lighting Setup!

In this issue: Ariel Cohen - Beauty Portrait


Shooting “studio” was always frightening to me. Because it means you need to go pro- Use heavy-duty strobes,

(the strobe) and a ll-light (the reec-

tor). All that has left is to simply push the shutter-release button.

serious light-modiers and control all

aspects of your light. But shooting in a controlled environment is something that I always wanted to try. So, with great sad feelings, I sold my beloved Playstation 3, added a few bucks, and got my rst strobe - Elinchrom D-Lite 4 it. It’s an entrylevel strobe (400W), but offers everything that I needed at that time. I also bought a 44cm white beautydish which will allow me to control the light in a more punchy way yet not losing the quality of it. After I got all that gear, I got a request from a local model-wanna-be who have asked me if I could do her a beauty shot. I saw the opportunity to produce an editorial beauty portrait session and said ‘yes’ right away. Since I wanted to do face and upperbody shots, I didn’t need much gear other than those I pointed earlier. I’ve positioned to model right in the middle of my home-studio (aka, my livingroom). I’ve placed the strobe above the model (plus a little to the side) and setting it to about 2.5~3.0 power. The strobe was about 1m away from her face. Since lighting your subject from above often produce shadows below eyes and neck, I’ve compensate that by using a silver reector underneath the model’s torso (silver reector bounce more light than a white reec-

tor). So, there we have it… a key-light

Lighting Setup One of the main things that a fashion/portrait photographer should bear in mind is, to make sure you able to capture a catch light in the model’s eyes. You now all those cartoons where there’s a puppy who stare at a some hotdogs at a grocery-store’s window when suddenly there’s a sprinkle of light in his eyes… well.. it’s the same here… catch light can give your photo that extra ‘thing’ you need to make it come to life. For me, making sure there’s a catch light is crucial. And I can do it by simply reviewing my photographs as I take them on my back of my camera or, as I usually do,


reviewing them on my computer as I shoot tethered (what I shoot goes instantly to my laptop, since I’ve learned that the camera’s LCD can be deceiving). At the end of that session I got about 300 photos (RAW format) and sat to choose the best and move them into the’ retouching’ phase. I mainly work with Adobe’s Photoshop CS6 and give a little polish with Portrait Professional 10. For this photo of Maria, I wanted to give her a perfect-lit background (to match the elegant look Maria is posing). So, I’ve cheated a-bit and replaced the whole original background with a radial-gradient-ll in Photoshop. The overall result was very pleasing as the model was very satised with it, and that’s one of the

ways you know you’re making the job right Equipment List

Canon EOS 7D - 1/200sec, f/11, ISO 200 Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM MACRO Elinchrom D-Lite 4 it 44cm White beauty-dish Silver Reector

Apple MacBook (for shooting tethered) About Ariel Cohen

I’m a 33 years-old enthusiast photographer. I’ve made my rst steps in photography about two years-ago. Since then, I have fell in-love with shooting portraits (mainly, senior-portraits and beauty). For me, photography is all about aesthetics- making clean and elegant art. I take much care about quality and for that reason, I let the ‘retouching’ phase to be an integral part of my workow. The ability to manipulate light to your advantage and creativity is one of the key elements that every photographer should apply. [email protected] www.ariel-c.com

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Instant Portrait - a Flash in aYour Shopping portrait Bag MakeLight her happy with spontaneous 12

Instant Portrait Light a Flash in Your Shopping Bag By Michael Zelbel

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Instant Portrait Light - a Flash in Your Shopping Bag 13

Today I want to share with you an old German proverb. It goes like this, “A bag for shopping makes your light jaw-dropping!” Stop acting like you’ve never heard it before! Fine, you got me – it’s not really a proverb; but I’m German and I use it all the time! In a couple of centuries it might become a household wisdom for young photographers to heed and abide by. I and the team have also prepared this article on shooting marvelous portraits with nothing but a speedlight and a shopping bag, so this blessed time may come sooner. If you haven’t yet bought a good selection of gear for conducting photo shoots, or nd yourself deprived of

fancy equipment, or get “stage fright” working with complex lighting setups, you will nd this article very useful.

You will learn a very simple and effective trick for quickly taking beautiful

pictures using only the barest minimum of equipment and the slightest bit of effort. Employing this technique, you will achieve several goals simultaneously: practice your skills, win the trust of a new model (or a client) – and immediately impress everyone around you! Actually, even if you are an advanced photographer, you can still benet

enormously from using this trick. It works like a charm for ensnaring people to do full-blown photo shoots with you; when they look at the beautiful pictures that you can take anywhere, at any time, they can ’t but allow you to work your magic on them in a studio! Just like I said, it is a very useful and impressive technique.

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But enough promises – let’s cut right to the chase and look into this awesome trick in depth! This is what you will need: • a white shopping bag roughly 54x44 cm (21x17 inches); • a speedlight; • a camera and a model (obviously). Now, time to pull off our effortless yet so impressive trick. Seriously, it’s as simple as it gets – so you might at least act all mysterious and imposing, lest it all seem too easy!

Make a test photo of your bag. Is it glowing white? If not, then adjust your ash power.

First, calibrate the speedlight to 1/16 power and place it inside the bag, facing upwards. Next, place the bag about 60 cm (2 feet) away and slightly to the side of the model, at a 45-degree angle – so when the ash goes

off it will light her up nicely. Adjust the camera to 100 ISO and f/2.8 diaphragm, then pick the shutter speed that is right for your lens (we used 1/200s). If your lens is not sensitive enough to open up the diaphragm so much, set the camera to f/4 – but change the setting of the speedlight to 1/8 power to compensate. At last, point your camera and shoot away! If you have done everything correctly, the resulting picture will feature a lot of soft light in the foreground and a substantially darker background. This type of lighting is very attering; it

never fails to leave the model thrilled and asking for more!

Make a test photo of your hand. Is the exposure correct? If not, then ne tune the ash power.

Very important: place the bag really close to your model. Otherwise the light gets hard instead of soft.

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Despite the simplicity of this technique, we still recommend that you practice it before going out there and testing your newly acquired skill of creating ins tant and awesome portraits. To further smooth out the learning curve and make it even easier on yourself, follow these guidelines: •The bag with the speedlight inside

should be very close to the model, to the point that, whenever you slightly shift the frame to the side, it pops into the image. If you need to place it far away, you’re doing it wrong –

•If the colors seem a bit off, check the

white balance. You can see in the lighting diagram that we used 5600 Kelvin for the shoot, in tune with the speedlight’s color temperature. Try not to leave it on auto. •Here’s a quick way to check the

lighting before the shoot: take a picture of the bag and see if it’s illuminated completely; next, shoot your hand next to the bag and see if it’s exposed correctly. If it’s too bright, bring down the power of the ash –

if it’s too dark, turn it up.

check the settings on the ash and

on your camera, then try again; •You don’t need an actual model to practice: just place an object in her place and take a couple of shots to get the feel of the lighting; •When looking at the images in the

tng properly, there should be virtually none.

Now you are ready to go out there and impress the heck out of everyone! The beauty of this trick is that you don’t need a studio; you can pull this off in a café, in an apartment – anywhere. As long as you have a shopping bag and a budget speedlight, you can make magic happen!

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We encourage you to learn this simple technique and try it out. Heed the wise saying, “A bag for shopping makes your light jaw-dropping,” and act upon it – who knows, maybe it will catch on! Michael Zelbel Model: Fredau Hoekstra http://fredauhoekstra.co.uk

Pictures in this article are 100% unretouched – just to give you a clear idea of how big a difference you can make with simple manipulations like the ones described in the article.

Download Free Movie Poster Template One sure-re way to make your photography work stand o ut and aract aenon is to display it in a unique manner that demonstrates clearly just how creave and inspired you are. It will be especially eecve if it’s the happy client or model that proudly does the displaying. To make the heroine of your most recent photo shoot even more delighted with the pictures you have created, you can go an extra mile and drop your best photo of her into this slick movie poster template. Next, ll it in with the model’s name, your name and your website address – and don’t forget to credit other people who helped in your photo shoot. As a nal step, save it as a JPG and either enclose it with the other pictures from the shoot or post it on the model’s Facebook page. Let the word of mouth do the rest – her friends will hardly resist the temptaon to “oooh” and “aaah” over this awesome-looking poster! To top it o, you could print it out in high resoluon and use it as an eye-catcher in your studio – it would double as an unusual piece of decoraon and an adversement for your skills! The template is available for instant download (in PSD format, to edit in Photoshop and compable soware) for the low, low cost of “nothing whatsoever” – all you need to do is sign up for our newsleer “Photography Talk”. It is chock-full of excellent advice on photography. No spam – we hate it as much as you do. No obligaons – you can unsubscribe with one click at any me. You want it, don’t you? Then click here to grab the template right now:

Photography Talk And may your new elegant movie poster make your models happy! Tip: you can make another, more light-hearted version of the template by simply inverng the background of the poster from black to white. It looks like a dream for wedding photos!

Oleg Starko

You Get What You Pay For 21

By JACQUES RATTAZ

You Get What You Pay For

Most professional photographers agree that you should not save on the wrong things. For some of them it is clear that you should not save on lenses, because they are very important. Others will tell you that you must not save on lighting. And then there is us. We don’t save on our effort to ask photographers who obviously know how to make great photos what they won’t save on. This time we asked Jacques Rattaz who is working as a fashion photographer and photography tutor at ETAP Sàrl Photography Institute. In his video he shares two of his lighting setup with us and discusses how much you have to spend on good lighting. For more information about Jacques Rattaz and his work visit: http://www.glamboudoir.ch http://www.photospassion.com http://www.etap.ch

Quickitip: The Sunny 16 Rule 22

By SEBASTIAN STELTER

Quicktip: The Sunny 16 Rule

Turns out you don’t really need a light meter in your camera if you just follow the simple rule in this article. To get really good at lighting and photography, you must develop a good feeling for light. And if you base your feelings on the Sunny 16 rule, it will pretty soon be as good as or better than your light meter. Let’s dive into it. Let’s say you set your aperture to f/16 (sunny day), your shutter speed will match your ISO value. Sounds easy right? But let’s make an example: You set your aperture to f/16 and the ISO to 100... and your shutter speed will be around 1/100 second (some cameras 1/125 second - closest to 1/100) a = 100 (basic ISO setting) > f/16 / ISO a / shutter speed 1/a You set your aperture to f/16 and the ISO to 200... your shutter speed will be around 1/200 second (some cameras 1/250 second)

Quickitip: The Sunny 16 Rule 23

a = 100 (basic ISO setting) > f/16 / ISO a*2 / shutter speed 1/a*2 I think you get the point. But there’s more. Remember you use f/16 because it’s a nice and sunny day. BUT even when the sky is e.g. cloudy and the conditions change, you can continue using this rule. You just have to set a different aperture value. Take a look at the table: Aperture

f/22

f/16

f/11

f/8

f/5.6

f/4

Lighng Condions

Winterwonderland / Desert

Sunny

Thin Overcast

Overcast

Heavy Overcast

Sunset/ Open Shade

Disnct

So around the edges

Barely visible

None

Shadows

Dark with Sharp edges

Long

Let’s make an example for a different lighting condition. Imagine you spend time with your girlfriend in the park and you are very close to sunset. What would you dial in? Yes, you are right! You set your aperture to f/4, your ISO to 100 and your shutter speed to 1/100 second (some cameras 1/125 second). What about changing the ISO? No problem, just think about the rule. Set your aperture to f/4, pump your ISO up to 200 and set your shutter speed to... Yes, 1/200 second (some cameras 1/250 second). I know there’s more to photography than following the rules. But sometimes rules can help you to get a better feeling for light. They can give you something even more important: More self-condence. I didn’t include a photographic example because I want YOU to go outside and try it out. I think this is the best part of a new thing to learn. I wish you lots of fun! Sebastian Stelter

Waterfalls - One Light Setup 24

Waterfalls One Light Setup By SARAH PULVERMUELLER


Shooting In summer time, I love to shoot at interesting spots. Especially when I want to do full body fashion photographs, I prefer a scenery that already exists. Surely you can create a scenery in a studio but in this case you’d need a lot of materials and accessories and this can cost you a lot of time and money. You can do a lot of experiments indoors but I think you should take advantage of good weather conditions and go outside with your camera. Look out for nice spots in your surroundings. Take your time and check the location. Watch out that the place is not crowded with people at shooting time. Shooting locations in public areas are often free of charge and no releases are needed – but check this out in advance to be sure! You can already see the nal picture,

but how did I get there? I was lucky that Laura Schmidt, a fashion design student, wanted to have fashion photographs from her newest semester work. I was very happy to have exceptional clothes that ask for a special surrounding. The brand new area with articial waterfalls has opened its doors in our region. It t-

ted well to the colors of the fashion clothes and the spot was outstanding like her unique work. tBefore I start shooting, I walk around

in the shooting area with my camera to check out different views. I already start to imagine where to position the model in the scenery. The advantage is that the model does not have to wait until I have found a good perspective. Models like the feeling that you already know what you want. During the shooting we tried different poses to see what is best for this shoot in this location where I have never been before.

Setup After heavy rain, we went to the articial waterfall area in the afternoon.

As it is a very wet and slippery place, I chose a one-light-setup with a Yongnuo strobe attached on an EzyBox from Lastolite, xed on a handle held

by an assistant. I didn’t want to use a tripod because I was afraid that the ash with the softbox could fall into the water and I preferred the exibil-

ity of an assistant who can change the position of the light pretty fast. During our shooting there was no direct hard light from the sun, therefore I didn’t have to cope with hard shadows on the model or the walls. The main light was the strobe and the sun was used as ll light for the scenery.

The soft box with one strobe was directed to the face of the model from right above. Watch out that the legs get enough light and that the exposure from head to tiptoe is homogeneous.


I was almost sitting on the ground, not too far away from the model to emphasize the length of her beautiful legs with a focal length of 73 mm. My camera settings were f / 4.5, 1/160 sec and ISO 400. I could have extended the shutter speed to 1/60 or more to get the falling water even smoother but I was pleased with this setting.

Camera and lens settings / StrobeEquipment Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Lens: EF-70-200 f/2.8L IS USM Camera settings 1/160 sec, f / 4.5, ISO 400 focal length: 73 mm 1 strobe : Yongnuo YN 560 and 1 radio trigger RF-602RX from Yongnuo Softbox-System: 38 cm x 38 cm Ezybox Hotshoe with a handle from Lastolite

Postproduction: Adobe Lightroom 4.1 For I love to work with Lightroom, I try to do as much as possible with this software and in this case this photograph didn’t see any Adobe Photoshop at all. I increased the image contrast and sharpness to give more drama to the water, walls and cloths. I lowered the saturation of the colors and raised the luminosity of red and orange to make the skin brighter and softer. To give the image a cool look I colored the lights in grey and the shadows

in light brown. Furthermore, I used the adjustment brush and marked the clothes and raised contrast and sharpness again to highlight the outt. That’s it!

Prole (Angaben zu meiner Person und den Models, Modelvertrag, Homepage) Photography is my second language. I’m a passionate photographer from Saarbruecken in the south-west of Germany. Since the last few years, photography became an essential part of my daily life. I love to shoot aesthetic people photography and touching wedding photography. The retouching phase is an integral part of my workow but in the end it’s always the people that make an image unique and fascinating - especially for the photographer himself. Photographer: Sarah Pulvermueller, Germany Homepage: http:// www. sarah-pulvermueller.de More photos of the waterfall series: http://www.sarahpulvermueller.de/index. php/publications/ goodlightmag Contact: [email protected] Model: Anika Felzen Fashion: Laura Schmidt H&M: Viktoria Treib

Reponsive Wordpress Themes For Photographers 27

Reponsive Wordpress Themes For Photographers Does this happen to you, too? You’re surng the web with your smartphone and

you have to zoom/scroll all the time just because the page isn’t optimized for a mobile device? And yet it’s so simple to optimize your own website for all devices. Reponsive theme is the magic word – it delivers optimum design for every resolution. Since we present mostly images on our pages, it’s especially interesting for us photographers. Fast indulgence for the observer of the portfolio who should be able to enjoy the picture without too much effort! Wordpress is perfect for everyone who wants a fancy website in a short period of time. The design is installed in a couple minutes and you can add functions as you like. The only thing that is timeconsuming is nding the tting design! To

save you time, here are my top 3 Wordpress themes for photographers/portfolio-pages:

1. Touchfolio by Dmitry Semenov I like this design very much because it keeps things simple and it shows images to their best advantage. You can choose between two different layouts for the cover page. Either various images with text or one single picture that lls the

whole area. In opposite to many portfolios it’s not dark but bright. Simple, beautiful – brilliant! Download: http://dimsemenov.com/themes/touchfolio


2. Pinboard by One Designs What I like most about this design is that you can „reload“ contents on the cover page – visually very appealing and well-arranged! You can choose preinstalled templates for the display of a portfolio, multiple columns, no sightbar. Here, the elements are reloaded as well, as soon as the observer scrolls down. I have to say, I like the social media icon bar - I like the colours when you move the mouse over it! Download: http://www.onedesigns.com/wordpress-themes/pinboard


3. Gridly by Eleven Themes This design impresses by its innovative layout. The menu is simple but not invisible, the main point lays on the individual elements. There is one special thing about this design: the images are shown very large in article-view. This way, it is also suitable as portfolio. I could imagine several categories which are presented on the cover page, such as fashion, stills etc. and with just one click you can navigate to the relevant gallery – amazing, modern design! Download: http://www.eleventhemes.com/gridly-theme/

For everyone who hasn’t got enough of those three designs or simply wants to be inspired – here is an overview with a total of 29 designs: http://www.pixelsophie.de/free-wordpress-themes-forphotographers/ Text: Sophia Frohmuth - [email protected] Images: Screenshots - Sophia Frohmuth

Helicon Filter - A smart tool for low budget 31

By HANNO KNIERIM

Helicon Filter - A smart tool for low budget

As an ambitious amateur photographer I always keep an eye on smart software solutions for the image processing. Yes, I know, nothing compared to programs like Adobe’s famous Photoshop or Lightroom, also it doesn´t compare to the immense costs bundled with it. For me there are much brighter prospects in using some excellent tools from the open source market. Usually they’re cheap to free and they have powerful features which often can stand comparison with the big brother. Today I want to introduce you to something I have found on the internet. It’s a piece of candy for those who want to process pictures in quick and easy steps. It’s called Helicon Filter.

About the Program You can get the program free of charge in a full featured demo version, which means that you can try out all features of it with no time limit. You’ll have to pay for it if you want to get your results without a watermark and if you want to

Helicon Filter - A smart tool for low budget 32

Get your results without a watermark and if you want to use the software without advertising. Now, let’s take a look at its features. Helicon proceeds all the standard image formats you need including RAW-processing for most of the modern cameras you can get. For quick processing this is a great thing. The usability of the program is great and mostly self-explaining. As you can see on screenshot #1 it looks quite professional. On the left hand side you have a le-browser bar which includes a

thumbnail preview. In this preview, all supported image formats are shown including the RAW-Files. This way, it’s easy to nd the desired les. Once selected with a single-click, the image is loaded to your workspace. In case of selecting a RAW you will get some information about the image in an extra pop-up window. In this case you have to wait a few second until the RAWFile is loaded. The moment the le appears in the

workspace, you are ready to use the following features:

5th Button: De-noise the picture 6th Button: Sharpen the picture 7th Button: Distorsion / torsion 8th Button: Add text to the picture 9th Button: A palette of retouching tools e.g. clone stamp, smudge, red eye reduction... 10th Button: Different picture frames 11th Button: Some more important functions like bokeh effect, colour toning... The last button is logically the button you want to use for saving your new picture. Each of these buttons has a preset sight by default which is useful for beginners. If you are an expert, you might want to use the expert mode which enhances more options to proceed. I am sure you will enjoy this tool for quick processing – just try it out and explore. Software: Helicon Filter Source: http://www.heliconsoft.com/ heliconlter.html

Price: Demo Version (free), 1 year license ($20.00), unlimited license ($75.00) About Me:

1st Button: This button is for opening any supported le without the le

browser 2nd Button: Crop the image, resize or change the resolution of the image 3rd Button: Adjust luminance, contrast and remove light fog 4th Button: White balance, saturation, colour balance

Hanno Knierim, working as web developer and certied TYPO3 in Hamburg, Germany Contact: [email protected] Web: www.amateur-foto.com Translation: Sakura Iwamoto - s.iwamoto91@googlemail. com

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5 Questions for

Michael Zelbel By SEBASTIAN STELTER

Hello Good Light reader! My name is Sebastian Stelter and I am the editor of Good Light! Magazine. Today, I feel very lucky to interview my cousin Michael Zelbel. Michael is among other projects founder of SmokingStrobes.com, ProPortfolioClub.com and Good Light! Magazine. For our team and many other photographers around the globe, he has brought so much to life. That’s why we want to dedicate our 5 questions for section in this issue to him. We had so much more questions to ask and I think we managed to let some of them sneak in. ;) We wanted you all to be part of this interview. So we have asked our readers and fellow photographers to send in some personal questions. Thank you all for that. We’ve picked 5 of your favorite questions and there’s more: Michael and I went spontaneously through some more of your questions and taped his

5 Questions for Michael Zelbel 36

5 Questions for Michael - Part 1

5 Questions for Michael - Part 2


answers for you. So check out the video below for more. [GL] Good Light! Magazine [MZ] Michael Zelbel [GL] Hi Michael. Thank you very much for being here with us. It’s been a very busy year and it still is. A new magazine... this is a really amazing project for all of us, right? Before we start, please tell us a little bit about the idea behind the magazine.

[MZ] Good Light Mag follows the same goal as SmokingStrobes does: Inspiring our fellow photographers to enjoy beauty photography as a very rewarding hobby. On SmokingStrobes I am posting videos to achieve this, simply because I love videos. But I also love photography magazines and I love how photos look on the iPad. When Apple came out with Newsstand on iOS all of a sudden I saw a chance to combine all these things which I love into one product: Good Light Magazine. I am very glad that my team and I took the chance because together we came up with a magazine which is fun to make and fun to read - a win win for all sides. [GL] That’s true. Let’s start with the questions of our readers. First and probably the most important question: Where do you get your wardrobe and how would you call your clothing style? For those who don’t know why we are asking: Michael is wearing those fancy asian style jackets in all of our videos.

[MZ] Most of my jackets in the shows are traditional Chinese jackets. They are called Tangzhuang. Wikipedia features an article about them, which does not mention the appearens of these jackets on SmokingStrobes, but nethertheless, it’s still worth reading:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangzhuang . When I wear such a jacket in combination with an ordinary pair of American jeans, then some people call that “strange” while I call it “fusion”. Let me tell you: Fusion is the new black! I buy most of my jackets on TaoBao, which is the Chinese version of eBay: http://www.taobao.com. Tip: Even if your dream dress is not a Tangzhuang, TaoBao is an awesome source for good and affordable photo gear. [GL] You have just answered the most important question in this interview. But let’s still answer the other questions. ;) Michael, how did you start? When did you discover your love and passion for photography?

[MZ] Some year ago my new girlfriend and I tried out taking a cool photo of her taking a shower in my apartment. We had so much fun with it that we started doing beauty and nude photography as a hobby. Now we are married for 6 years already and we are still loving our hobby.

[GL] It all started with the hobby... I think a lot of us have partly similar experiences but you started to do something on a whole other level. Has photography become your fulltime job I sometimes ask myself? Does he really sleep? You are always putting so much time into all of your projects. You must be doing this as a fulltime professional! Or is there a day job and can you give our reader some tips about WorkLife-Balance? [MZ] For me, photography is a nice and rewarding hobby besides my day job, which is also nice but much tougher and much more demanding than photography. I believe the reason why I can pull of a thing or two in both worlds is that I am really motivated. In the


long run motivation always beats talent and resources. One guideline which I apply to both, profession and hobby is something which I learned from a smart marketer named Joe Polish: Only do ELF business! ELF stands for Easy, Lucrative and Fun. So if for example a photoshoot is easy, lucrative and fun for me, then I do it, otherwise, I give it a pass. Even though I make quite some money with my photography, “lucrative” here does not necessarily mean revenue for me. Shooting the portfolio photo which I always wanted to shoot or lming a fun tutorial for SmokingStrobes or for Pro Portfolio Club is often for me more lucrative than money. After all it’s a hobby. However, ELF does also apply to my day job. [GL] I absolutely agree. So... I’ve already asked you about the idea behind the magazine. So tell us, why are you doing all of this!? What’s your motivation? What drives you every day to put so much effort into teaching photographers around the world?

[MZ] I see that our tutorials inspire viewers to meet other people, like models, stylist and other photographers. They do beauty and nude photo shoots together. They all have fun and they produce photos which make all of them proud. I believe that this helps all of us as a society to overcome this old-fashioned, shame-driven education, which made us feel like our body is something dirty and that we have to be ashamed when we show our body, let alone when we have fun with it. This education causes a lot of issues for us. That’s why I love to fuel a movement which helps us nding a mindset with much more freedom, peace and fun and with much less shame. [GL] Thank you very much for being so open. Last question: What can we expect in the next... let’s say... two years?


[MZ] I hope that in two years from now I have found a way to focus on exactly those ways of communication with my fellow photographers, which provide the most benet to them and which in turn fuel our movement as much as possible. Focus, because I don’t want to slice myself too thin and I certainly don’t want to become a workaholic. Easy, lucrative and fun..., ya know? [GL] Michael thank you so much for answering all of our questions. The whole team is very happy to be part of the movement and we can’t wait to share more of your inspiration in the future.

[MZ] Thank you so much for your questions. Good light!

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