Ambassadors Programme

Taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with an EF24-105mm lens at a focal length of 90mm. © Eberhard Schuy

The picture above was shot for a poster, containing interesting splashes of water for creative effect. The sunglasses were attached securely with invisible nylon threads, so they couldn’t move and in this way we were able to assemble the splashes from multiple shots. In order to get the water to exactly the right place we built a small “waterslide".  Each of the three distinctive splashes could now be photographed exactly. The three images were then simply assembled as a composite in post-production. For this picture we took ​​about 60 shots to find the three images for our composite. 

• Home-made 'bokeh'
The picture with the nice bokeh was another shot. It's quite hard to get a bokeh effect where you want it in a picture. A backlight would normally be used to generate the light but it would be visible in the background, so I use a trick.
I use a scourer, which I pull apart and place over the lens hood. Now a very hard light is needed from the side and with a little patience I get my home-made bokeh. It’s also very easy to produce different degrees of bokeh with this technique by changing the aperture settings.

• Product shot
And then there was a simple product shot. We had three glasses in a row and I was looking for an interesting angle. I wanted to find a harmonious, matching perspective in a one-shot photograph. Yes, I know what you’re thinking - it´s sometimes easier to work with different shots and a composite - but I believe that there are special perspectives which you can only find if you see the objects in a complete setting. I often try to shoot in this way, with a minimum of post-production work and a maximum of real but unusual perspectives. That’s why I shot this picture very simply on a white glossy plate with a soft back light (an Oktabox measuring 32inches). The special perspective is produced by rotating the image 180°.

• In conclusion...
I want the viewer to be able to discover things in the same way as I have envisioned. The art of photography is to look at ordinary things and imagine them in particular situations. If I succeed in doing this, then the viewer will not only discover the picture but also the situation as I imagined it.

www.schuyfotografie.de

A nice example of bokeh (above), but with a home-made twist, as can be seen by the customised scouring pad taped to the lenshood (right). Taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with an EF100mm f/2.8 Macro lens. © Eberhard Schuy

Eberhard's set-up is nicely visualised here (right) in a sketch showing the original camera perspective. Taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with an EF24-105mm lens at a focal length of 35mm. © Eberhard Schuy