On the journey between Italy and the UK I decided to stop off and spend a couple of nights with my wonderful cousin Sarah who lives in the south of the Bourgogne region of france. It’s a fairly quiet place unaffected by centuries of progress. It has lived through industrial revolutions and technological revolutions yet remains relatively unchanged. Everything happens slowly here because life revolves around wine. For thousands of years this area has been allocated to the growing of grapes and in the 1861 classification the parcels of land, teroir, of the region were allocated a Cru status based upon the character of the wines they produced. More info about Burgundy
Sarah’s dear friend Jean-Claude Bligny got wind of my journey plans and commissioned me to take his portrait. Fabulous I thought, all I needed was good light and a backdrop. We had 20 minutes of the best light and four locations to shoot so we whizzed around and got the shots that we needed. I used my trusty GF110mm lens at f/2 and my GFX50s camera on a tripod.
The light was to contrasty at the start of the shoot and 20 minutes later it had lost it’s contrast and was flat. The moment of best light was like a Poisson distribution curve, a gentle rise to perfection before falling away.
The vinyards of Santenay and the surrounding district made the perfect backdrop for this series of portraits. The colours of the leaves had just started to turn but perhaps we were a week or two early for the optimum colour.
I opted to shoot with the late afternoon sun and I encouraged further warmth in the shot bottom right in the panel above using a LUT in Lightroom. The rich, warmth of this look will be better placed alongside his paintings in books and catalogues.
Jean-Claude is a fascinating man who once spent time with the late Henri Cartier-Bresson. His art is fluid and free. His colour palettete warm and seductive. Jean-Claude is a gentle man with a charismatic yet understated presence. After the shoot, Sarah, Jean-Claude and I had a wonderful dinner together on the terrace at Restaurant Le Terroir in the town square of Santenay. I treasure these fabulous few hours that I spent with this remarkable man.
Click on his name below or the picture grid to go through to his website.
One of the aspects I’ve noticed in your work is the bokeh of your lenses when you open them wide. The more I see the more am convinced that FUJI is the way to go! That GF110mm lens is very nice and in your hands does wonders! Although I do love the bokeh of the old Zeiss Hasselblad lenses especially the 80 and the 150mm! Great work as always Damien!
Thank you Pedro,
As you say, the GF110mm lens has a beautifully calm bokeh and it suits my way of shooting perfectly. I did many yeas of shooting with the 80mm f/2.8 Planar and 150mm f/4 Sonar back in the last century. They were quite neutral too as you say. Not in the same league though as lens tech and materials have evolved.
Kind regards, Damien
Dear Damien,
Beautiful photos, the soft appearance of Jean-Claude and the beautiful landscape are beautifully displayed.
I myself live in the Sevennen in France, a rough natural area where I enjoy the beauty that nature gives us every day.
Stay safe in this difficult time,
Rose
Thank you Rose for those kind words. I do love the visual experience of France and the wine of course.
Kindest regards,
Damien
Wonderful pictures, Damien! You are a master of light! I loved Jean- Claude’s expression on the first B&W picture.
Thank you Luiz,
Rapport, connection and the ability to give direction are often the biggest challenges in portraiture. Thank you for the compliments.
Kindest regards,
Damien
Wonderful portraits, as usual !!! All but the last one seems like unmodified ambient light. As far as the last/bottom image is concerned, was a reflector used to the right of camera?
Hi Michael,
Thank you. Yes, just natural light. The last shot has a reflector just out of shot to the right of the frame.
Kindest regards,
Damien.
Wonderful images, Damien! I like the fourth one down with its warm colors, but the last one is just amazing!
Thank you for the compliments Jay. Sometimes the best results are from the simplest of setups.
Kindest regards,
Damien.
Beautiful portraits. What is LUT in Lightroom?
Hi Fiona,
Thank you. A LUT is a Look Up Table and is like a preset but far more useful as it is independent of slider positions. The film simulations by camera manufacturers are LUTs. I use these ones: https://iwltbap.com/
Kindest regards,
Damien.
Hi Damien,
thank you for the pointer to those LUTs. I think LUTs solve a lot of problems I had with so called pre-sets. Those pre-sets dial in all sorts of paramters which I then have to adjust again (obviously), but with that I usually destroy the look of the pre-set. With the LUTs I get a color and contrast look for an image and then I can still go through the usual exposure paramters, without necessarily destroying the look of the LUT.
One question though: how did you approach a collection of 250+ LUTs? The sheer amount of LUTs in this collection leaves me overwhelmed.
Did you just tried them all and over time developed a few favorites for certain types of images/scenes?
Cheers,
Robin
Hi Robin,
I used the LUT viewer tool on 5 of my jpegs and made a selection of about 20 LUTs that I like and then used Lightroom favourites tool to star these.
Cheers,
Damien
Just incredible, Damien. I want to learn to find that light.
Thank you Patrick,
I can show you how to find that light when we visit Tuscany no problem. It all comes down to timing for the desired contrast. Knowing what to look for is half the battle ;)
Kindest regards,
Damien.
Exquisite images Damien as always. We’re all these images natural light only? Peace my friend.
Hi Michael,
Thank you. Yes, just natural light. The last shot has a reflector just out of shot to the right of the frame.
Kindest regards,
Damien.
Whaw Damien, outstanding pictures. My favourite is the last one.
Thank you Ivan,
The Hugo Boss suit among the vines has a classy resonance. It’s my favourite too.
Kindest regards,
Damien.