Just a quick post today. Yesterday we had the privilege to try the freshly bottled Grauburgunder from Philipp Schreiber. It was fantastic!

Philipp now has his own line of wines within the Schreiber family. And we got the chance to do the label design. Hopefully the line will soon be extended with more of those expressive capitals, it fits so well to the character of the wines. He's making really good ones!

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We just had a quick but very exciting shoot that we want to share. Peter van Recum, our favorite hairdresser, had to go up for his Meisterprüfung (master exam). And for that he used of course his and our favorite model Annika. After the long exam day they dropped by, dead tired but happy, for a couple of shots. This provided us with a chance to test our recently acquired new gear in the studio. We used the Sony alpha850 with a 135mm STF lens which has a unique build to provide the smoothest out of focus rendering possible. And we have to admit, we are blown away by the quality of the camera and this unique lens. We are now looking forward very much to future, more extensive, shoots with this combination. Enjoy the shots of the tired but beautiful, hot & pink Annika.

PS. Peter, we loved the hairdo and make-up. Shall we schedule a shoot soon with a couple and tons of make-up? Just for fun?

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Where on saturday the highlight was the Ballroom competition, on sunday it was the Latin S-class competition that took the spotlight at Hessen Tanzt. With a field of over 60 couples there was a lot happening. Especially in the semi-finals the overall level was so high that it was hard to pick the few who would reach the final. Unfortunately our sponsor couple Simon Völbel / Regina Murtasina (picture above) did not manage to reach the final and had to call the semi-finals their end station in Hessen Tanzt. But as you can see on the pictures, they did look great on the floor! In the final we were pleased to see that it was Nikita Bazev / Marta Arndt who took the win in a convincing way. Nikita used to train Anastasia and does workshops in our club on a regular basis (by the way Anastasia is desperately looking for a new dance partner here in the area, please contact us if you have someone). The second place was a clear one for Anton Skuratov / Alena Uehlin who were finalists in the Ballroom competition the day before too (3rd). The fight for the third place was a close one with in the end Michal Stukan / Susanne Miscenko just beating Ilie Bardahan / Anastasia Bodnar. All in all it was a great competition to watch and shoot.

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First things first; Happy New Year! Not that the year 2009 was bad, in fact we finished it really nicely with creating a coffee-table book for (our favorite model) Annika. She gave the book as a Christmas present to her boyfriend. Somewhere in the beginning of december a complete afternoon was booked for Annika. We used that time well, creating different styles and setups with her. From very girl-all-over-pink-bunny to hot-wet-kill-with-your-eyes! It is always a pleasure to work with Annika and not to forget tons of fun! The only problem we had was bringing the selection of pictures for the book down to a reasonable amount, there are no bad shots with her! The book turned out to be really nice, and we also ordered one for ourselves. So if you have some spare minute just drop by for a cup of coffee (from our new genius coffee-machine) and have a look at the book with your own eyes.

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In January, just before the Fluid Females series, we did another series for Peter van Recum to be submitted to the category Men of the Schwarzkopf German Hairdressing Awards. In the name of art he changed Patrick in one day from slick to raw, it was quite a long day.

What we are showing here is not the submission but alternate versions of the series though. In these versions we used a second shot from our immense archives to serve as a background in order to create 4 different moods.

For this shooting we also used the Sigma SD14 with the new 50mm f1.4. The foveon sensor brings a unique edge to the shots and the bokeh of the 50mm is really exceptional. This combination gave us really nice files to work with.

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A few days ago we posted a blog entry with our Fluid Females series. And we got quite a few questions about it, mostly "how did you do that guys?". Some people thought we used some CGI (computer generated imagery) for the liquids or maybe gels. But I have to disappoint those. It all was real, we really used milk, water, coffee & wine for this series. Well instead of wine we used cherry juice, the color simply worked out better, but you get my point. But first things first.

The idea
Peter had already a few of the models in mind that he wanted to use and they were very different. While brainstorming we came up with the metaphor of the different liquids. We discussed a few solutions, including CGI, but we wanted a natural result and decided to go for the real deal. That meant of course making a mess in the studio. So we went out to buy some milk, wine & coffee.

A litte side step
Let's not forget that the main theme of the shooting was still the hair. And a few remarkable make-overs took place for this shooting. Especially Annika (water) looked totally different in the morning compared to the Annika on the final photo. She came in with long hair and sleepy eyes. In the end she had short hair and was shining through the camera. I am afraid she will kill me for posting this but have a look at the shot below that was made to set up the light. Hard to believe that's the same girl, right?

Not only Annika but actually all the girls went through quite some transformation as you can see, for instance, from the shots below of our coffee girl (Tamara). Pretty easy to see why such shooting easily takes more than a normal working day, isn't it?

Let's start the shooting
We figured that we would not be able to get the desired result in just one shot. Chances would be fairly low to get exactly that shot where both the liquid splash and the model's pose would really come together. So we opted for dividing it into steps. The basic idea was simple; first we shoot the hair and then the splash. Probably a few splashes to have enough material to work with. And then we would put it all together in photoshop. Sounds easy doesn't it?

Finding the light
First step towards it was finding the right light. We came up with a set-up consisting of three lights and a reflector. The main light was a large softbox pointing towards the ceiling. This also gave us some light on the top of the hair. A strip light provided the contour light from behind. A silver reflector was used to throw back some light on the models face and brighten the shadows. And last but not least a spot with honeycomb was pointed onto the background. In this case just the grey wall. Having grey walls in the studio comes in handy a lot of times we noticed.

Getting the basics
Getting the right shot to work with later was not as easy as it sounds. The models had to move millimeter by millimeter, shot after shot. While every time trying to get a good expression on the face. And Olga tortured them by having to move into absolutely impossible and painful positions. Well it's all for art, isn't it? After this basic shooting the photo was chosen which would form the basis for the ultimate end product.

Let's make a mess
After printing the chosen photo for reference we started preparing for shooting the fluids part. We covered the floor with some big plastic sheet and got the towels ready. The girls undressed and so did I, partly. As I was the one who was throwing the fluids it splashed back quite often. Peter was also standing close by with the reflector so he also had to take off his pants. It was a peculiar sight, 2 men in their undies throwing drinks onto an almost naked model. Several towels were needed as after each shot the model had to be dried and cleaned. It made the shooting pretty time consuming.

A few notes on the fluids
Milk was probably the easiest of the four we did. Because it is a bit thicker and coherent it created a nice film over the body. And because it is not so transparent it was easy to use in the post processing. It also created a very nice contrast on Maria's chocolate brown skin.

The coffee was not too difficult too. The only big problem there was the smell. We used cheap instant coffee for it, and boy, did that stink!

The wine gave us and the model a bit more trouble. We ended up actually not using wine but cherry juice. The wine gave us a not so desired brownish result. But the cherry juice gave us exactly the red we wanted. For the model this was not exactly the most desirable fluid though, it took a few days before the color was completely off her skin.

Water gave us the biggest headache of the four. In total we had three sessions to get to the final result. We are not sure why but cold, ice cold water gave the best shapes. Much to the delight of the model. To get the water more visible we used writing ink to color it blue. In post processing we used both the normal and the blue colored water.

And then?
Well and then we spent a lot of time post processing. For each final photo we used 4 to 6 shots of the splashes. We tried to minimize the amount of transforming the splashes to keep the light as natural as possible. Of course we had to clone and clean quite a bit but we really wanted (and managed imho) to get to a very natural final result.

So did we make a mess? Oh yes we did, in the studio. But we think that all the time, effort and mess was worth it. Peter for whom we did this shooting was very happy with it. And so were we. I hope this article answered a few questions and inspired a few of you. Nothing is impossible. You have an idea? Go for it!

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Finally! Yes finally we can show you the results of a shooting we did last February. It was a shooting we did for Peter van Recum for his submission to the Schwarzkopf German Hairdressing Awards. The bad news is that we didn't get a nomination this year (last year we did). But that doesn't make us less proud of the results. We had a bold idea for this series with clothing made out of liquids; water, milk, coffee and wine. And of course a fitting type of model to each of those liquids. So we found Annika, Maria, Tamara and Suki as willing victims for our crazy ideas. Not an easy job for them as they had to hold the same position for a long time while we splashed the liquids onto them. Especially Annika had to withstand a lot as we needed 3 sessions to get the water, ice cold water, right. But the girls did an amazing job.

As camera we used a Sigma SD14 with the new 50mm f1.4. It gave us really nice files to work with. The foveon sensor does bring a unique edge to the files, we love it.

Thanks girls! And Peter, next year we will try even harder and hopefully we'll get another nomination.

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Last weekend I did a shooting with Anastasia just before her braids had to go out. She had them done this summer in Anapa where she stayed with her grandparents. For the styling we dived into her mum's wardrobe and dressed her "Ready for Autumn".

You want something like this too? That's also possible of course and don't wait too long. It makes a great Christmas present but Christmas is already here in less than 100 days! Just give us a call and make that appointment!

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Hello everybody,

I just made my very own font! Via Astrid Hagen’s blog I landed on www.fontcapture.com and created the BobNL font* using my own scribbly handwriting. I’m afraid that I do have to try it once more though… and be a bit more accurate. It’s all a bit jumpy, didn’t pay enough attention to the baseline I guess. Anyway I think it is cool, go and try for yourself!

Love Bob

*free for personal use

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Two dancers, three outfits, three locations, one great shooting. And we did all outfits in studio too. Here are four shots to already enjoy, much more to come later!

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