What a morning of creativity. I’m getting better about taking the extra time to document and share it all. That’s been a hole in my game over the years, but now, with this pandemic and so much uncertainty about when I’ll ever able able to travel and shoot like I used to, I have to accept that this is all part of my job now. The silver lining is certainly that I will have footage like this, not just for all of you, but for myself. It’ll be so cool to look back on in 10 or 20 years, remember that I not only survived a global pandemic, but thrived.
I’ve been seeing some photographers do these distance shoots, or FaceTime shoots. The premise is, you do a FaceTime call with a model, you direct them however you want, then you take stills or screenshots when you see something you like. I found a lot of problems with this approach and began working on a solution. One of the biggest issues is just lack of raw data and image quality. If on the rare chance you get an outstanding shot, you’d never be able to print it with any respectable quality.
It took a few weeks, but I landed on this. Set up a big shrine in the Kommienezuspadt style; skulls, brass, candles, dead flowers and all the things I like. A one hundred year old antique picture frame. A HDMI adapter from my phone to a projector, and then throw the FaceTime call to the center of the picture frame. Once the image was placed, use my actual Nikon D750 to photograph the entire scene. This way, I get raw data and high resolution mages. I have to say, it worked out great during my first shoot this morning with a beautiful, curvy pinup named Katherine from Sarajevo.
I worked the problems of this out in my mind for weeks before I scheduled the first shoot, and I'm glad I did. A few hang ups, but overall, it went smoothly. I posted the work on my Instagram account and booked 10 more in two hours! I’m happy to create more content like this, and talk about philosophies as a creative professional, staying inspired and staying relevant during situations like the one we’re stuck in right now. As freelancers, its very much up to us to make our own opportunities. Thanks so much for staying with me. Enjoy the work!
▶️ 3Speak
Good lord my dude, these turned out absolutely sick!
Your idea came to life in a big way!
Nice and really interesting concept. And by far the best result of all remote shoots i've seen so far. Great job.
Thanks, @bescouted. I didn't like the idea of having low res screen shots, assuming I did get something I liked. That kind of informed the rest of the entire process. I already had the projector, too.
Awww.. Lars. Very succecsful work. Again! ♥️
Damn Awesome Idea! Looks great!
Love it! The set up and everything looks great! Amazing job!
Thank you, @grisvisa!
Hello my friend ...
How are you ?
Stay at home...
I'm good, @wira8788. How are you? I've barely left the house. Don't worry, lol
I'm fine.
Corona made me have to stay home.
Usually I spend time with my loving children❤
hope soon every things will be ok and looking amazing from mirror
@yousafharoonkhan thanks!
The atmosphere is haunting!
Yeah, I love that about it, @spellmaker! It's a very ghost like experience.
Interesting to watch your video and to see how you are using your new equipment and adapting your space to work with the new situation. I like the effect (in the video) of the figure appearing over the edges of the frame.
Yeah. I do, too, @opheliafu. I edited that out of the final images because I was worried every photographer that follows me on Instagram would recognize it was a projector and then copy the entire thing. I'm over that now, though. If they do, they do. It's not like I have it copyrighted. I think the next shoot [...tomorrow], I'm going to leave the image spilling off the edge of the frame.
You are so creative 😭❤️ Hands down the best FaceTime shoot I've seen, and there has been a lot of them recently!
Why, thank you, @eveuncovered. I'd still love to experiment together if you change you mind :)
Very nice! That is pretty ingenious! I think you can buy LCD screens in all sizes pretty cheap these days. If you wanted a little extra resolution you could probably pick one of those up that fits the size you need for the picture frame. This is totally awesome though!
This is so clever!
I actually haven't seen any Facetime shoots, so I didn't realise it was a thing, but I love this concept, and your frame and setting.
If a model had a proper video camera connected to her computer, would that have made a difference do you think? The camera on the iPhone is pretty good though...
Amazing! I love it
I love the atmosphere, great work, I'd like to learn more about photography.
I think it's the best concept I've seen since the start of quarantine. It's just wonderful !