Vienna is a vibrant city and a perfect place for photographers. I’m not only talking about the old town and the 1st district, that vibrancy spreads beyond the city centre and up to the hills that surround the city.
This city is filled with stories, emotions and culture and all of that can be a great starting point for a creative portrait photoshoot in Vienna. While some of the areas of Vienna are lovely and charming others may look dramatic and maybe obscure, I often want to show these contrasts or try to tell stories, show moods and atmosphere that you not always notice. Except from doing photoshoot in Viennese alleys with palaces on both sides I seek for places that make the overall mood of a photoshoot feel odd. These negative spaces are the best for storytelling creative photoshoots.
Location
This time I decided to choose Nordbahnhof.
Despite it’s dark history during WW2 Nordbahnhof is a great location, which, sadly, is being demolished. Maybe it is because it was used to transport Jewish people to concentration camps during nazi times or maybe it’s simply gentrification, but quite a vibrant location which could be a museum/art centre/a location with bars or other type of a cultural centre is being replaced with some dull modern boxlike houses.
Meanwhile, we still can come there and use this as a photoshoot location before it’s demolished. It’s an outstanding location with graffities which is looking like a place where underground culture thrives, while in Vienna as a whole this underground culture feels to be quite weak.
Equipment I Used
Aside from having a nice concept for this photoshoot, I was also excited to try out some new equipment I’d bought recently.
After several years of shooting with the Sony A7R II, I realised it was finally time for an upgrade. Since portrait photography is my main focus, I figured the latest Sony A7R V wasn’t really necessary for me. It’s packed with features like AI focusing that can track birds’ eyes, planes, and trains — which I simply don’t need. So, for the first time, I decided not to go for the R version and instead chose the regular A7 IV. Fewer megapixels on the same sensor size should give better low-light performance, which is more useful for the way I work.
So I got the new Sony A7 IV, and this was my first proper chance to test it in practice.
Along with the camera, I also picked up a new projecting snoot light modifier, which I’d been wanting for quite a while. I don’t have Bowens mount lights, but I still use three speedlights with a trigger, and the adaptor I used worked quite well. This modifier allows to shape light as you want which is a great thing for a creative portrait photoshoot. It lets you use either a full circle or any rectangular shapes of light and also has a ton of filters which I don’t really use.
It was also the first time I used this light modifier in the field, and while the sun was quite bright I was able to overpower it and sometimes enhance photos by adding a direct spot of light.
Aside from that modifier I of course used an umbrella diffuser and an Octabox.
For the lenses, within the last 1.5 years I switched completely to Samyang. They have sufficient quality while being much cheaper than Sony lenses. With the new Sony A7IV both of my main lenses focus almost instantly, I barely notice the time it takes to focus and it fells like I can simply point my camera and press the release button.
The lenses I used were Samyang 45mm f1.8 and 135mm f1.8.
The creative Portrait Photoshoot in Vienna 20th District
Looking for a grungy and desolated area I got into the north of Vienna city centre where I found an abandoned railway station and was a lot of great locations for portraits. We came there in the middle of the day as I was looking for bright sunlight and harsh shadows which allowed me to play with the light and get interesting compositions.
The photos above I have taken with the 135mm lens, deciding to blur the background even more for this dramatic effect.
As always just to start with something and experiment I decided to take a few rather basic portraits. Before doing anything more complicated.
Then we went on creating rather less serious and more experimental look.
And then to add drama and change the mood of the photoshoot I have changed the light and tried to make photos look more intense.
As it was still quite cold and my model was starting to feel uncomfortable we have decided to finalised this creative portrait photoshoot with these images. The last one was rather physically difficult for me as I had to photograph and hold the light on a very long tripod so it would be directly above the man.
