Olivier Monteux Photography

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Asomnie the film

Asomnie is a short film directed by my good friend Damien Serban (www.damienserban.com) & Yann Bertrand, shot with a cellphone and produced by Arte, 3xPlus and Le Forum des Images.

The synopsis: “A young woman had an operation removing the need to sleep. We follow her in a world where dreams break out into real life.”

It will be diffused for the first time at Le Forum des Images (www.forumdesimages.net) in Paris the 13 June at 19h30 for the famous Pocket Films festival (www.festivalpocketfilms.fr). The entrance is free so anyone can come! The official website: http://www.asomnie.com

Damien and Yann have been doing shorts films for quite some time now and their film Silken won numerous awards : http://www.silken.fr (and was diffused on Arte, a French TV channel, this month)

Check the trailer here:

Asomnie (teaser)
envoyé par AbsintheStudio - Court métrage, documentaire et bande annonce.

Jun 06, 2009 | Categories: News, Videos | Tags: cellphone, damien serban, film, short film, yann bertrand | Leave A Comment »

5D Mark II Firmware 1.1.0 Available

The long awaited firmware update for my beloved Canon 5D MKII is here! We finally get manual settings for the video mode, yes !! And there’s some minor bug fix too, for others functions. Maybe I’ll try to shoot some videos with the 5D now.

So if you’ve got one, go update it here:
http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/firm-e/eos5dmk2/firmware.html

Jun 03, 2009 | Categories: News | Tags: 5D MKII, canon, firmware, video | Leave A Comment »

Lila’s shooting

This week I shot Lila N (http://www.lilanoufais.book.fr) a beautiful french model i’ve know for 7 years now. I was a little intimidated since I knew she shot with others goods photographers. I wanted this shot to be really great so I needed to find a make-up artist in 2 days and Fleur (http://www.fleur-xu.book.fr/) came to my rescue!

I tried my best to do an edito/fashion type of shoot and I used my Profoto beauty dish as main light, a canon 580EXII in a JS apollo softbox and another 580EXII with a grid.

I think it’s one of my best series so far but I know I can do and will do even better in the near future!

Here is the lighting diagram using the cool tool on this website: http://www.lightingdiagrams.com/Creator

lighting-diagram-lila-shoot

And don’t forget to add me on facebook or twitter to follow my updates!

May 03, 2009 | Categories: photography | Tags: 580 EXII, 5D MKII, beauty dish, fashion, model, portrait, profoto, softbox, strobist | Leave A Comment »

Joane first shooting

Last week I’ve done my first test shooting with Joane a very beautiful new model, and i’ve been able to try for the first time my new profoto comptact R600 and beauty dish.
Well the beauty dish light rocks! (I tried the mola mantti beauty dish at the workshop ‘shooting and workflow‘ and it was also incredible, i’ll have to buy me one someday)
And I can’t wait to work again with Joane in a more creative shoot.

On a side note, I’ve finished reading ‘the moment it clicks’ from Joe McNally, and it was definitely good, i’ve ordered ‘The hot shoe diaries’ now.

Joane 7 Joane 6

Apr 22, 2009 | Categories: photography | Tags: 5D MKII, beauty dish, compact R, fashion, model, portrait, profoto, shooting, softbox | Leave A Comment »

Workshop People and Beauty

Last week-end I’ve attended my first ever photography workshop. I’ve learnt a lot in this ‘shooting and Workflow‘ workshop (2days and almost 17 hours), a lot about lighting, a lot about profoto and some new tips for lightroom.
Olivier Chauvignat is a good instructor, if you have a decent level in photography and are interested in studio shoot. I wouldn’t really recommend this specific workshop to a beginner it could be boring for him sometime. But Olivier offers a lot of other workshops of different levels. Check it out on www.peopleandbeauty.com and www.olivier-chauvignat.com

I discovered that a workshop is, for me, a little frustrating, you don’t really own the shoot, I mean it’s not your photography. What I love the most in photography is the creative freedom it offers, but I really need to be the one in charge of the shooting not just the one who click…

Anyway I think I’ll try other workshops (but not too often), and maybe the medium format one, I’d love to try and learn how to use an Hasselblad.

Some pictures done at the workshop:

Apr 14, 2009 | Categories: Workshops | Tags: olivier chauvignat, people and beauty, workshop | Leave A Comment »

Camille first Shooting

Last week I was finally able to try my new camera in a real shooting with Camille. It was her first time in a studio shoot. She Had to warm up for a little time but after she was doing pretty good, a natural cute girl.
I have to say the 5D MKII is quite incredible, so much better than the first one or the 40D.

I had a small problem though, I shoot tethered to my macbook and lightroom 2 and sometimes when I took a lot of frames very fast, they wouldn’t be downloaded on the computer and I had to disconnect the camera (happily the photos were still saved on the memory card) don’t know if it’s because of the large raw files but i’ll have to test this again.

The shoot was done the strobist way, with 3 canon 580 EXII, pocket wizard, one softbox Wescott JS Appolo 70×70cm and one shoot through white umbrella.

Apr 07, 2009 | Categories: photography | Tags: 580 EXII, 5D MKII, camille, canon, fashion, model, softbox, strobist | Leave A Comment »

Calibrating monitors…

Today while I was editing photos of my last shooting I had so much difference between what I was seeing on my macbook, my cintiq 12WX and my Samsung SynMaster T260 monitor, that I decided to try to calibrate all my monitors using the eye-one display 2. eyeoneplusmacbook

I first tried the normal way with the software offered with the eye-one : Match 3, the result weren’t really good on the macbook, so I decided to try the demo version of ColorEyes Display Pro, a software I heard of on some forums. After one hour , all I had was a blank screen and nothing I could do… Had to connect another monitor so I could change the profile… not a really good experience!

So I tried again Eye-One Match 3 with some advanced settings thanks to the blog questionsphoto.com (In French) and this time I finally got some great colors on my macbook ! Settings: White point D65, Gamma 2.2, Luminance 110cd/m² with less ambient light.

With 4 hours lost in total I don’t think I’ll try again calibrating with Coloreyes display pro, too much things to do but I would love to explore this software more since it’s supposed to be the top maybe I just did something wrong in the setup.
Update: ok on the website of integrated color they say there is a lot of problems with Mac OSX 10.5.6 (what I use as you expect) … Need to wait for the next version before I can really evaluate this software.

Apr 04, 2009 | Categories: Equipment, Tips & Tricks | Tags: calibrating, eye-one, monitor | Leave A Comment »

Ambroise Portraits

Three weeks ago, on the first beautiful sunny day in Paris since the winter came, I went to the Park André-Citroën with my friend Ambroise and his girlfriend. I couldn’t resist taking my new canon 5D MKII for the trip!

Mar 26, 2009 | Categories: photography | Tags: 5D, André-citroën, Park, portrait | 1 Comment »

David Lachapelle retro at La Monnaie de Paris

Yesterday I went to see David Lachapelle’s retro expo at La Monnaie de Paris, I have to say that I was a little disappointed, for 10 Euros you have 60 photos maximum and you can finish the tour, in like 20 minutes. Sure the different pictures were really greats and the “Deluge” theme is well approached and the ‘new’ serie “Présages d’Innocence” (based on William Blake “Auguries of Innocence”) in ‘3D’ is stunning but most of the press announced more than 200 photos and I felt like I was cheated.

Should you go? Well if you are a Fan, yes! But if you never heard of David Lachapelle before, go buy one of his book or just search the net, you should see more than this expo can offer you…

David Lachapelle Website

David Lachapelle Retro Expo

Mar 24, 2009 | Categories: Rants, Thoughts, photography | Tags: 3D, expo, lachapelle | Leave A Comment »

Portfolio section & Amelie

I’ve finished my portfolio section using SlideShowPro (http://slideshowpro.net), I just have to add more and more photos inside… It’s a really cool php script and flash slideshow because it’s fully compatible with lightroom 2 and I can export everything to my website with 2 clicks in lightroom.
So I added some photos from a shoot with Amélie (DJ Alex Ortega’s Girlfriend). I’ve done this shooting in november 2008 with my canon 40D, can’t wait to try my Canon 5D MKII on a real shoot. If you want to see the full set go to my portfolio section. I still need to add the pictures of Alex Ortega