French Beauty photographer Patrick Bellair uses GF45-100mmF4 R LM OIS WR in the studio.
GF45-100mmF4 “Zoom Ahead” – Patrick Bellair
2020.03.06
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Patrick Bellair
Born in Paris in 1977, Patrick Bellair was still very young when his mother introduced him to photography. By the time he made his first picture, a picture of his sister, he knew he was going to make his hobby a career for life. Inspired by the world around him, he is constantly watching trends in the world of beauty photography that allows him to propose avant-garde achievements.
Specialized in beauty photography, jewelery and cosmetics, he takes these shots with a FUJIFILM GFX system, Profoto lighting, and mainly uses beauty bowls and a Mola Manti. Beauty photography, certainly subjective, must correspond to an ideal, a certain perfection that suggests irreproachable expertise.
His quest for beauty is made of perpetual questioning. Knowing how to bring out beauty in an image needs an expert eye, a visual sensibility and specific skills. From staging to makeup techniques, all the steps are meticulously done for an irreproachable result.
The success of a beauty photograph is the collaboration of the makeup artist, the hairdresser, the photographer and the model. Complicity and mutual understanding are essential to create the desired atmosphere and style.
I was lucky to be one of the first to put my hands on a GFX50s, it was in May 2017, and I had to go shoot Mr Miyamoto in Japan. At the time I had a Nikon D3, and I felt that I needed a better image resolution to go further in the quality of the portraits I realized. So I bought it two days before leaving and found myself on the spot "without a net". From the first image, I felt that nothing will ever be as before, and in a very positive way. It was enough to zoom in the eye of my character to realize that I saw my reflection, in an extremely clear way on the image, a new world opened to me.
Since then, I use the GFX as a single camera, we quickly taste the quality. It allows me to gain precision in my beauty portraits, to have an unequaled skin quality, which allows me at the retouch to have this texture so pleasant to work. The bokeh, when I use my gears open, is also incredible, I had never reached such a velvety smooth with the full frame system. I could feel a huge gap, since I use this camera. In my daily beauty work, I find it well balanced in terms of size, it works perfectly, which is essential in my job, and I really feel to be on a DSLR in terms of functionality. I was able to test other medium format camera, quality was at the rendez-vous, but the ergonomics was far behind.
Recently I was able to test the GFX100, I did the same test as in Japan: A classic portrait, then I zoom in on the eye ... there, I take a huge slap, the iris now occupies 100% of my Apple Cinema Display Retina 23 inch, I was speechless.
Today I have the chance to be a GFX ambassador, I even went to Japan to visit Fujifilm and meet the people behind this system, a love story was born with and I feel that it will last !
