[ENGLISH] Merfolks on the rocks. A mermaid photoshoot

( Voor de Nederlandse vertaling klik hier. )

It’s been a few weeks since I photographed this, but nevertheless it is one of my favorite photoshoots I’ve had this year. Photographing a mermaid had been on my to-do list for a long time. I love everything that has anything to do with fantasy, fairytales or magic anyway.

The photoshoot was planned in October. In the Netherlands you can never really count on the weather but generally you are way into autumn already and thus it’s COLD! Unfortunately, planning it earlier wasn’t possible since Model/Merman Alex would come over from Paris that weekend, for the photoshoot and to go swimming together with mermaid Marijke.

Luckily, the weather was kind to us and it ended up being one of the warmest fall days of the wear, with temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius. YAY! That means we had more time to take photos other than the estimated ten minutes, because of the chance of undercooling of the models.

So, we had more time to take photos than we originally expected. This enabled me to take extra pictures of Marijke and Alex separately from each other, which was something I really wanted to do as well but didn’t think I was able to because I expected much colder weather.

For this photoshoot I used the ELB400 by Elinchrom, with the Elinchrom Deep Octa 100 without front diffuser for more contrast. It was very easy for me to go for the ELB400.

-It runs on a battery.

And considerably long too! After 200 flashes on full power, the batterywas only half empty. It doesn’t have any cables and doesn’t have a plug – outlets are hard to find on the beach anyway. 😉

– Lightweight.

It only weighs 2 kilos.

– Power.

It was a very sunny day. In the middle of the afternoon, around 13:00 when the sun was at its brightest I still managed to push the sunlight away with my flash. Of course this will only work when your subject is relatively close to the light source. Just imagine what you can achieve with these flashes at dusk or dawn when the sunlight is weaker and you are able to use the flash to control your light even more. With the launch of the new EL Skyport HS Plus the opportunities of flashing over ambient light have also become a lot more extensive. This photoshoot took place before the launch of the new Skyport; otherwise I would have loved to test its versatility. during this photoshoot.

– User friendliness.

With the ELB400 strapped to my assistant’s shoulder, the flash head on top of a monopod and attached to it the Deep Octa 100 my assistant was literally a ‘voice activated lightstand’. This is perfect when you are choosing a location between water and rocks and you sometimes need to climb towards your desired photoshoot location.

Apart from the photos from the photoshoot itself, Miranda made the backstage photos you can see in this blog post. She was also able to assist me some more, which is great when I am doing photoshoots on location, especially when not everything is within reach and you sometimes have to balance on rocks to be able to get the perfect angle.
Patrick took care of the video with this photoshoot. We managed to make some extraordinary video footage, filmed with a drone from the sky. We could also use the extra hands since Marijke and Alex are not able to move around well on land. They had to literally be lifted and carried to the location and needed help with posing for the photos.
Of course I also have to mention the beautifuil mermaid tails by FinFolk Productions. They create beautiful tails and accessories for every mermaid fanatic. The tails are completely made to measure and you can also help design the look of your tail.
The best thing about the tails is that they can actually be used for swimming because there is a monofin built inside the fluke. Right now, there is a whole community of people who like to swim in these tails, using freediving techniques. You should really watch both Mermaid Chrystal’s and Merman Arion’s Youtube videos if you want to check out their freediving skills.