Shooting Days

The house we rent is 2017 was so beautiful, we used it again in 2018. We went to some interesting places in the surroundings (not the same as the year before).

Wednesday May 9

Thursday May 10

Instead of going to Germany, we did fotoshoots at the house: the swimming pool, the jacuzzi, the two gardens and the main fitness room that was used as photographic studio (models were not particullary interested in training their bodies those days). I did most of the shootings at the backporch of the nearby church: it was much quieter there.

It's a pity, because a catwalk learning session was planned the following days and some models really needed some training. A catwalk is not the same as walking the dog.

Two german photographers were present too (they will stay at the house for the whole time) and a third did come and drove back home in the evening. Thimister is not far away from the border and in less than 20 minutes you are at the border with Germany or the Netherlands.

Friday May 11

The sanatorium is a great ocation, but the airsoft groups have modified the building in some places. The normal brick walls were replaced by ugly concrete walls, some original windows were replaced by plastic ones and everywhere you can see voting boots used by the players to conceal themselves. This is plainly ugly.

They are still interesting rooms, mostly at the staircases in the middle and on one side of the building. I took the best pictures this day. There was virtually no wind and the weather was really fine. We went to the rooftop of the building to take some pictures. The river Vesdre winds near the sanatorium. It's water is very pure and was used for washing wool and linnen in the nearby villages. Verviers was a very important town because of this business.

Halfway the day, the keepers of the building put old stuff on fire (mostly plastic water bottles used by the airsoft players) and the smoke forced us out of the buildings. We contnued our shootings at the old firefighters car, each year a bit more derelect.

Besides the german photographer, we had two extra dutch photographers who stayed at the hotel in Liège. We really needed those photographers, because it's better to work individually (one model and one photographer).

This system where some of the photographers stay at a nearby hotel for the night is a real good idea, because there is too much people at the house in the evening. Thats also the reason why we do shootings on different locations: the house is really big, but you cant concentrate on your photoshoot when they are continuously people around you.

The main theme for the day was military/security, but we didn't impose the theme to the models. The theme is well suited to the environment ans some photographers did a really good job with this theme. A more basic outfit (blue jeans, green t shirt and sunglasses are also well suited here.

Saturday May 12

There is a different mix of models today and the atmosphere is excellent.

After the shooting we'll go somewhere to eat something. The models have found a macdonalds nearby. However it's located in the centre of the town and there is no parking anywhere. Het is een leuke dag geworden en na de shooting gaan we iets eten in Luik zelf. De modellen hebben een hamburgertent gevonden in het midden van de stad. Het duurt bijna een uur om tot op de plaats te geraken, en natuurlijk is er geen parking in de buurt. There are impressive buildings in the city, but everything is dirty. I do not feel hungry anymore once i see the dirty tables in the macdonalds. Conclusion: don't ever allow models to choose a dining place. And by the way, don't let the models choose locations for a shooting, or let them choose their cloting if you want to avoid a total disaster.

The two belgian photographers are leaving this evening and we go back to the house. One of the german photographers is quite sick and is also leaving. Only two photographers are left for the last day. There is no shooting in the evening (with torches and a smoke machine like last year). We are too much exausted. The house is not used to it's full potential this year.

I have two pictures that i would call "good enough", not only to be used for my portfolio, but also to be used for the promotion of other events. One of the models is very motivated, easy going and can adapt to different photogrphers and different styles. It was his first shooting and you can see that he learned a lot about posing techniques. Another model would come with his girlfriend. Normalle i never invite girls, but she was a "professional model" so i tried it. The girl posed mostly with another models and of course there was some trouble in the evening when the models went to town. Thats the reason why i never invite girls. The last day they stayed in their bed till 10 'o clock and didn't participate with our shootings.

Sunday May 13 It starts to rain and it will rain till the afternoon. Our aim was to work with two groups: one staying at the house and doing shootings around the house and one group going to the location, an old railoras station nearby. We had a similar scheme last year and it worked beautifully. This year however it's raining and we have only two photographers. We used the photostudio for the shootings.

Conclusion

Of course i try to process the images as soon as possible, but it's not normal that the whole processing is done in less than a week, like a normal individual one day-one model shooting.

You need to invite 30 models to have 10 of them. You begin with sending an invitation to the models one month before the event (less than 5% will respond). Then one week later, you sen again a message, because most models don't respond to the first message (now you will have a 10% response rate). The next week you ask for a confirmation (only 5% will confirm). The week before the event you begin to make the planning (which day(s) the models will come). Again, you will loose 90% of the persons who responded. One day before the event you ask again a confirmation and a timing. How mch models you will loose depends if there is something else to do somewhere (festival). And 50% of the people who confirmed the day defore will effectively make the trip. So be prepared: organising shooting days is a month long full time job.

The event was expensive for only two days of good shootings. The costs are paid by the advertisements on the websites i manage, but the money could have been spent more effectively. It's clear we need to change the formula.

The second international shooting days will happen halfway september in Ordensburg Vogelsang. That's a location that i like very much, i went there the year before (and also the years before). We'll probably go for such a formula in the next year: a hotel or youth hotel (like Vogelsang) instead of a house.