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Creating the Photograph

Creating the Photograph: Barthelemy Nadal’s “Elodie”

Chris Gampat
No Comments
01/30/2014
3 Mins read

Last Updated on 01/30/2014 by Julius Motal

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Creating the Photograph is an original series where we interview photographers about a photo that they shot and how it was achieved. The results are some knowledge passed on to you. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com

Barthelemy Nadal’s photography appeared in our Flickr Group and upon really liking it, we asked him about this photo that he shot. We always find strobist photography to be inspiring not only to readers, but also to subjects to make themselves look better. Bart, believe it or not, has done a whole series of these and was kind enough to talk to us about how he did them.

Here’s his story.

Concept

I tried the strobist approach many times with the all manual flashes + Cactus V5 combo and it is very self-educational and fun. But when I bought a 4x Yongnuo YN622 E-TTL trigger bundle, I was eager to try out the E-TTL function of my camera and my flashes. Alas, only my 580EX2 were compatible at the time, so I decided to go the “Zack Arias route” and try the one light picture.

Gear

– 5D Mk II

– My beloved 135mm f/2 L

– 1 flash: 580 EX II

–  color gels for cobra flashes

– 2 Yongnuo YN622 Wireless ETTL Flash Trigger

– 1 flash tripod from Manfrotto 1051BAC

– 1 softbox umbrella

– Lightroom

– Two good friends to help you with your ideas and hold the tripod against the wind

The Shoot

lighting-pattern

The two main difficulties for this shoot was:

– the wind trying to knock the tripod + umbrella to the ground

– the laggy autofocus of the 5D Mk II in low light

It was super dark with only a weak street light far behind us, not enough for the Mark II. This is where you need an assistant to light up the model face with a phone or a lamp so you can focus correctly (auto or manual).

2013-07-30_1375220316

I used the 135mm because i wanted to compress the background light and take advantage of the bokeh created that way–but also because I love that lens. And I wanted to shoot sharp wide open.

I tried several setting first to test the flash as showed here:

chrono

Then I let Elodie pose herself a bit.

Post Production

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1/13 left some motion blur on the left leg, but the face was well lit by the flash so it’s fine and more dynamic like that.
I’m not a huge fan of alteration of a photo on Photoshop and I’d rather do everything on site so I have little to do afterwards. A bit of contrast and black, retain the highlight a bit, modify the white balance a little, add some saturation, removing the dusty flying thingy…et voilà.

Before and After

Before
Before
After
After

Here’s another shot that we tried

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135mm f2 Barthelemy Nadal canon Creating the photograph Elodie flashes strobist yongnuo
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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