Night out in Copenhagen - Testing the Broncolor Ringflash C

Playing around with fashion photography is definitely fun and as I was on my way from Italy to Iceland with a two day lay-over in Copenhagen I decided to take out the Broncolor Ring Flash C for a test shoot in the city.

Instagram - Behind the Scenes by Anna Neretto.

Going out in Copenhagen is something I vividly remember from my 14 years of living in the city. I really love Copenhagen and no city is really comparable when it comes to the style of the bars and restaurants. So my idea was to capture the style of the Danish nightlife and using the Ringflash as a powerful light source to give a kind of raw and semi trashy look to the shoot.

We quickly got together a good team consisting of StylistAnna Neretto, Makeup artist Vivi Pilgaard, the two fantastic models Natasja and Cecilie from unique Models and Lorenzo, my assistant. With us we brought the Broncolor Ringflash C and the Broncolor Verso Powerpack and my Phase One 645DFcamera with the IQ180 back.

In the Metro getting into town.
The Ringflash really dispersed the light well and gave good detail in both skintone, hair and makeup.

Now the Broncolor Ringflash C is amazing in many ways. It has a good number of accessories that you can combine with its powerful light but I wanted to use it in the simplest way possible. I wanted to use the powerful output to give some edge to the scene and simply mounted the flash around the lens on the camera body without any kind of soft reflector or honeycomb. It had to be a simple setup as we were moving trough the city on foot and had to carry all the gear along. This is very different from shooting in the studio and we had a long shoot, but actually everything went smooth. I was truly amazed about the girls that were walking for miles around the city in high heels and all the time being ready for being photographed.

City ZOO
Here I dialled down the power of the flash to give me the ability to capture the ligth of the ZOO sign above, but still the girls are evenly lit.

One of the new features of the Ringflash is that it is equipped with powerful modeling lights. 10 small halogen lamps of 20 watts apiece are really helpful when you are shooting in the dark light and it made focusing so much easier. The modeling light also served well to make the pupils small and thus we were able to shoot without getting red eyes.

The powerful output made me able to dim the light from the surroundings and create a powerful focus on the girls and when needed I could easily turn the power down and use the surrounding light to make a mix of colors.

It was fantastically easy to work with and performed well in synchronization with the Phase One camera. The Verso proved to be a huge advantage and gave a fast reload of the flash and we shot the whole evening with only a single battery change.

Calling a cab.

 I have always loved the light of the Ringflash and the special kind of shadows that they give. The Broncolor Ringflash C certainly lights all areas of its range quite evenly and I got a good skin tone from using the flashlight white balance on the camera. 

Last shot
Model Natasja on the pavement of Versterbro.

Although the Ringflash is a system that jumps in and out of fashion I surely wish to make it a permanent piece of my gear. I can see many uses for it in both fashion and nature and I really look forward to check out the many new accessories as well.

Into the WILD video

Check out this small "behind the scenes" video we did during the WILD shoot at the Natural History Museum in Denmark. In the video I talk about working with the Phase One 645DF and the IQ180 Digital back plus the idea behind the whole shoot.

The Phase One camera and the Broncolor light (I used the Verso with one Pulso G lamp) worked perfectly together.

At the beginning of the day I was a bit stressed about all the unknown factors like the scratched thick glass of the dirorams and the light in the dioramas that could not be switched off.
But as soon as our team got started the whole shoot showed out to be both interesting and great fun. The two brave models Marie Sander and Nathalie from Unique Models jumped into their roles as "childs of nature" with ease and the stylist Anna Neretto and the makeupartist Louise Bruun worked their magic while my assitant Lorenzo and I fixed the light and prepared for the shoot.

The whole editorial will be published online in Nude Magazine in the beginning of August.

Thank you everybody for a fantastic day :)

Into The Wild – For NUDE Magazine

http://www.phaseone.com/en/Camera-Systems/IQ-Series.aspx

© Uri Golman 2012 for NUDE Magazine
Styling: Anna Neretto - Hair & makeup by Louise Bruun - Assisted by Ayoe Nissen - Digital Artwork Thomas Petersen - Photographic assistant: Lorenzo Roncaglione - Models: Marie Sander @ Unique Models - Location: Natural History Museum of Denmark

The dioramas of the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark have always inspired me. I still remember looking at them when I was just a small kid. I would stand there dreaming of becoming a wildlife photographer, going on adventures into the wild and to photograph the animals that I saw behind the glass.

The daydreaming never stopped…

Now today, many years later, I have photographed most of them in the wild. I have been tracking polar bears on foot in the Arctic; photographed lions up close and have hiked in the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan searching for the elusive Snow leopard.  It has been, and still is, a true adventure and I love the work.

So for the WILD Project is was only natural to start at the beginning, where all my dreams had started. I called the Natural History Museum and spoke with a good friend there and a few weeks later I had the permission to shoot there. I got a wonderful team together and after a talk with NUDE Magazine we were ready for a full day of shooting in the dioramas.

For the shoot I chose to use my Phase One 645DF camera with an IQ180 back. I have used this fantastic camera for the past 6 months and it never ceases to amaze me. The sharpness and details of the images and the 16 bit tonal range is a real plus when it comes to create creative imagery, so it was perfect for the job.
One of the challenges to the job was that all the dioramas are covered by a very thick layer of glass and not only that. The glass is angled in an approximate 70 degrees to the floor and is kind of scratched by the thousands of hands that have visited the museum over the years since the dioramas were build. This extra piece of thick angled glass in front of the lens gives a kind of unsharp but dreamy look, that I actually like. Normally it would be hard to focus trough a glass like that but the precision focus feature of the 645DF made the work easy and I could work like I would have done in any studio. The only problem being that the models could not hear what I said, so we had to invent a simple sign language for that.

The light was a whole different aspect. I was not able to switch of the artificial light of the dioramas but needed flash to light the scene. The dioramas are quite small and there would only be room for one light. I used a Broncolor Verso battery pack with a Pulso G Lamp and a large softbox, a beauty dish and a basic reflector. All the dioramas are behind glass and I wanted to keep the atmosphere of the old exhibitions the way they were. But by matching the camera with Broncolor RFS transmitter I had perfect control of the light and everything went to plan.

© Uri Golman 2012 for NUDE Magazine
Styling: Anna Neretto - Hair & makeup by Louise Bruun - Assisted by Ayoe Nissen - Digital Artwork Thomas Petersen - Photographic assistant: Lorenzo Roncaglione - Models: Nathalie @ Unique Models - Location: Natural History Museum of Denmark

To be photographing amongst the dioramas that had inspired me in my childhood was an incredible experience. When photographing the musk oxen for example I could easily imagine the fresh air from the Arctic tundra and feel the snow beneath my feet. The model posing behind the glass made the whole scene kind of surreal but with the outfit and styling she fitted right in. She looked like she belonged right there coexisting with the animals. Like she had been there all of her life and knew the tundra and the animals. The scene suddenly looked natural and I came to think that this is how it should be. We have forgotten that we are actually a part of nature and should treat it as such. Maybe you think that my view is a bit on the rosy side of things but as I stood there I started to daydream about a different world. A world where we are closer to nature. Where we can coexist side by side with the animals that we share this world with. It is a dream – I know that. But then again, where would we be without dreams?

© Uri Golman 2012 for NUDE Magazine
Styling: Anna Neretto - Hair & makeup by Louise Bruun - Assisted by Ayoe Nissen - Digital Artwork Thomas Petersen - Photographic assistant: Lorenzo Roncaglione - Models: Marie Sander @ Unique Models - Location: Natural History Museum of Denmark