Hello, my name is Steven Van Veen (CLICK TO HIS HOMEPAGE) and this is my first contribution to Martin’s blog :-) I’m a photographer and I essentially take pictures of people and I love doing it. If you already know me and have seen some of my work that I do, then you might know, that I really like using availiable light for taking my pictures.

Here are a few examples from current shoots that I’ve had.

Available light is a wonderful thing for photography. It has its own character and it’s for free :)

The thing is, many ambitious hobby photographers don’t have the money to have their own studio not to mention the studio lamps.

In this case you can of course visit a large number of workshops that are offer such experiences regularly. But without continioues practise, the things that you learn at such workshops will fade away and not be remembered.

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With available light it’s a whole other thing. At practicaly any time, you can try your skills and learn how to work in different lighting conditions. You can try stuff in the hard sunlight of midday, or in the shade of a tree, during the evening with its often romantic light and even inside using the soft cool light pouring through a window on a rainy afternoon.

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Of course you can’t do everything at anytime of the day. But exactly this can be interesting for ambitious and imaginative photographers. Since a lot of the responsibility for controlling the light has diminished, naturally a lot of the possibilities of what you can do in a specific light situation are reduced.

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At the same time, your inner eye and fantasy as a photographer are challenged and stimulated, which is very important. Through mixing that which was planned for the shoot together with spontaneous creativeness, you can get results, taht you never would have dreamed of before the shoot.

For example the following shot with Janina Wissler.

We booked a room in a four star hotel to take some standard lingerie shots for her portfolio. I put a lot of time and effort into organising this shoot and I had rented a lot of equipment from Hensel.

The shoot was really great, and after we had what we wanted, we started to just try things out and have a some fun doing it. In one of the rooms of the suite was a stylish, wellness kind of reclining chair that you could lay on, and at the same time light was falling through a large window onto it.

We tried out a bunch of things with it and after a while we got a shot out of it, that we really never calculated with. In the end it was actually one of the best pictures we took during that day. So get out there and use your imagination, the most powerful instrument you have, together with available light which gives you a creative framework. And the best thing is, is’s all for free :-)

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"PERHAPS GOOD TO KNOW" AVAILABLE LIGHT, fashion, how to, lighting, LIVE TRAINING