Interview – B.Romain Photography

Romain is a professional photographer from Belgium. I came across his portfolio and was impressed with what I saw, especially the "60 Quotes" project. Today we are happy to have him sharing with us the background and tips behind his amazing shots. To view more of his works, visit his online portfolio here.

Hi Romain! Thank you so much for taking up this interview. For a start, how about giving us a simple introduction about you?

Hi there! My name is Romain and I am from Belgium. Photography is my passion since I bought my first DSLR camera three years ago. I am in love with strobist and concert photography.

I like your "60 Quotes" project where each image is captured beautifully with a unique meaning given to it. Can you share with us what is the project about and how did you get that idea?

Basically, the goal of this project is to illustrate 60 quotes. It all began after I took the first shot. I like the glass but found the picture was rather empty. So I tried to fill in the spaces with some random texts and that was how the first quotation came by. After this piece, I kept up shooting images with some quotes in mind that evolved into the project eventually. It becomes addictive after some time. Giving a meaning to each shot is really interesting and finding the appropriate quotes also require some searches.

Is there any particular reason for naming the project as "60" quotes, and not "70" or "80"?

Sixty sounds really nice! And a flickr album page contains almost 60 pictures.

You are an expert of bokeh effect as I can see from many of your works. What are your tools of the trade?

My pair of glasses. I must wear them to avoid that bokeh effect. I am using these stuffs;
Canon EOS 40D and 400D DSLR camera, 50mm f:1,4 – 70-200 f:2,8 and the 18-55 kit lens, 580ex II, 2 yn-460 flashes, an umbrella and some cactus transmitters.

Most of the bokeh-shots came out from the 50mm lens. Shallow depth of field is much easier to achieve with this prime lens than with the two others. I mainly use a Vertex 300 to carry everything around.

The Canon 5D MKII, 85mm f:1,2 and 200mm f:2,0 are on my wishlist, but it’s still too much of a dream to me.

How is your typical day like?

Get up, survive, and got back to bed. Seriously I spend my day answering emails, taking shots in various concerts and events, post-processing them, then sending them all around. Just when I have got some time left, I will go out and shoot some more portraits on the streets. Being a photographer is not that easy as you do not spend the most time taking that much of pictures.

The hardwork is more on the marketing side. You need to get known, sell your products and work on various communications while only a few hours left behind your DSLR camera.

Are there any website(s) that you visit regularly?

10Steps.SG! Beside the other social media websites, I also visit Flickr (and Fluidr), Mashable, Behance, Abduzeedo and a few french photography forums.

Thank you once again for sparing your time with us! As a final word, do you have any tips for upcoming photographers and designers?

You are welcome! About the tips, hold on! Share your work, send it to everywhere it seems appropriate and carry on until you get some positive feedback.

You can check out for more beautiful stuffs on Romain’s official website and Facebook group.