Before & After | Daniel Alonso

Need more to be thankful for this holiday season? Feast your eyes on our latest Before & After with Daniel Alonso.

It's a veritable cornucopia of visual deliciousness!

Tell us a little about yourself, Daniel.

I’m absolutely inspired by cinema. It was my visual school since I was a kid. I always try to imagine how my favorite cinema directors or cinematographers would shoot a wedding. That’s a huge freedom of possibilities. In this way, Terence Malick, M. Night Shyamalan, David Fincher, Emmanuel Lubezki, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan… are references for me. 

Your influences. Who are they? 

And talking about wedding photographers: Fer Juaristi (my main reference), Jonas Peterson, Jeff Newsom, Sean Flanigan, Samm Blake, Roberto Ramos, Sara Byrne… And such much more. 

Do you have a vision before shooting a wedding? Tell us about your workflow - how your vision comes to life while shooting and in post.

I have some of my own rules when planning a shoot that makes it “my style”. Basically, my priority is emotion and good light. Finding these two things is my obsession and I try to make them come together in the same frame. But, I always try to be in an open-minded state and think like a cinema director, like I said before. 

This photo is and example of working outside of my own rules. 

My workflow is as follows:

1. I shoot almost 4000 photos per wedding. I select 800. I re-select 150-200 of this 800. I use Photomechanic for the selection. 

2. I edit that 150-200 with LR. Always with Portra 160++ as a base. 

3. I end the final look with ASE. I use Fuji Reala. 

4. I make a slideshow with these photos. 

5. I edit the rest of the 800 photos using the same post-process and catalog that as the first edition. 

This process takes me 2 to 3 days.

When posting the wedding, I try to tell the story even if I have to “lie” in the order of the images to make it more cinematic. 

I studied cinema scripting in college and it helps me to try to tell a story. 

Now, tell us all about how this magnificent image came to be.

The story of this photo is the story of a photo that I didn't want to take.

We were coming from the ceremony to the venue and taking some time for the portrait shoots. I had in my head some shoots that I planned the day before and we were running out of time.

Suddenly, on the road we saw all the sheep in the country field.

In my head, I saw that great pictures could come from this. But I didn’t ask the bride and groom to take them. I saw a lot of difficulties. Just in my head: how can I ask them to stop the car on a side of the road, get out the car, get into a dusty and dirty country field to try to get a good shot? It was an internal fight for me. I didn’t want to make them feel uncomfortable.

“OK, let’s do this” I said to myself.

And we did it.

The final image that I wanted to take is this one.

But in the process of getting this, I asked them to take a walk up the hill while I was shooting that sequence.

And then it happened.

The post-processing was as follows:

1. SOOC

2. I use Portra 160++ as a beginning with and warm tone on shadows and pink tone in
highlights.

3. I decreased the highlights and the saturation of reds, yellow and oranges.

4. I opened the photo on Alien Skin Exposure. I applied the Fuji Reala and used the bokeh
tool to give a little tilt effect just on the below zone of the photo, just to avoid that the
stones get the attention.

5. It’s done. :)

Now, dear viewers, Feast your Eyes upon the whole sequence!

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Before & After | Heiko Schmidt

"Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Road Dahl

Although we don't always see or believe it, our world is full of magic and wonder, and it's images like this that help remind us. But, it takes more than a good camera to capture that magic. It takes an adventurous heart and a keen eye. And, like Ansel Adams said, "A good photograph is knowing where to stand."

Heiko Schmidt's capture of this German castle is just such an image. Let's hear from him just how the magic happened.

First, tell us a little but about you.

My name is Heiko Schmidt. I'm 24 year old graphic designer from Germany. I am from a small town called Wetzlar, better known as the birthplace of the Leica Camera - but I never had one. I'm just a guy with a camera, who likes to capture memories and have a good time with people. Most of all I like to photograph people and landscapes.

By what artists/creatives are you influenced? What inspires you?

There are many influences, but I guess music is the most important source of inspiration for me. I listen to a lot of Instrumental/Trip-Hop. It really gets me into a thoughtful mood. Also, I try to travel a lot and explore different places. But sometimes it is even a stage play or movie that inspires me. But above all, it is the people around me and the ones who I look up to - like the German photographer Johannes H. (@IG: pangeaproductions)

Do you have a vision in mind before going out and shooting? Tell us about about your workflow and how the vision comes to life before shooting and in post:

Sometimes I prepare everything in detail - I even draw what I imagine for the shoot on paper. Often I just shoot with gut instinct. And suddenly I see something I want to implement. And other times I don't even start taking photos in the first place but observe my surroundings in detail.

In post-processing I think choice of color is most important; I play a lot with colors.

Now tell us how this amazing image came together, from conception to completion: 

After stressful weeks at work, I had to get out. In search for some relaxation, only one thing came to my mind: a fresh breeze and quiet. Inspired by other photographers on instagram, the destination was easily found. So I asked some friends to go on a walk through the woods with me. 

We left the house at 4am to get there before sunrise. We hiked in the dawn through the dark forest in between rabbits, foxes and deer. 

As soon as we got to the castle, the sun has slowly risen and the fog that surrounded us on the way has gone. It was a really cold day and the first sun rays gave us an incredibly warming happy feeling. 

First I tried to capture the castle from many different perspectives.

After we had some good shots, we decided to move on. Past the castle, I took a last look back, for another photo. A strange perspective slightly from the side.

After I checked my photos on the computer I felt very frustrated - no fog and too much harsh light. Not the fairytale mood I expected. Through post-processing with Lightroom I tried to get the fairytale mood back onto my photo.

First I cropped and straightened the castle. To fill it with warmth I changed the white balance.

I lightened up the photo and corrected some areas with the adjustment brush to highlight the fog. 

With the dehaze slider I reduced the haze to get more structure of the castle.

After that, I experimented with VSCO Presets, but I wasn't satisfied with the colors.

So I took out the green and changed yellow into orange.

At the end I added some Graduated Filters with more saturation to intensify the orange colors of the forest.

Et Voilá.

Follow Heiko's work!