Marek Würfl

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My name is Marek Würfl and I’m a portrait and fine-art photographer based in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Since childhood, I was fascinated by Renaissance paintings, especially those from Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, Rogier van der Weyden, and Hans Memling. I spent hours browsing through art history books, captivated by the emotions in those mysterious portraits.

Indeed, this experience influenced and shaped me as an artist, and in my work, I’m trying to achieve a similar effect as those renaissance portraits had on me.

My models are people I found to be strange or different in any way.

The way I choose to capture them, calm, lost in their thoughts and unaware of the camera, gives the viewer the opportunity to fill in the blank space with his own imagination.

Camera:

Canon 5D Mark II
This camera is a real workhorse. It is the most reliable tool I’ve ever used. It has never failed me.

Even though it can’t keep up with recently released cameras, I would still recommend it for anyone starting out and looking for a second-hand full frame camera.

Lenses:

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
My favorite focal length. I find the perspective of 85mm lenses the most pleasing, without distortion and closest to the perspective of the human eye.

Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM
Great lens with amazing detail rendering and sharpness. It’s ideal when I want to achieve an even more distant feel.

On the other side, the longer focal length also means I’m further away from my subject and from a distance it’s difficult to maintain the connection with my model. So even though I like this lens, I use it sparingly.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Probably my least used lens. Mostly used as backup or when shooting with daylight.

I really like the contrast of this lens. When shooting with strobes, however, the wider focal length means you need more lights to light the background.

Lighting:

Profoto B1X Location Kit 500 AirTTL
Batteries for B1X
During a portrait shoot, I prefer to work alone, without assistance, because I like a quiet atmosphere without distractions.

Of course, this has some obvious downsides such as setting up the set alone, without any help. Or running back and forth to adjust the position of lights.

That’s why I prefer to use battery-powered lights. It gives me freedom when shaping light, without the hassle of dealing with cords. Profoto B1X is compact, easy to operate, and when paired with Air Remote TTL-C for Canon I can quickly change power settings or switch off the modeling lamp to save battery.

Lighting Modifiers:

Elinchrom Rotalux Octabox 175cm /69″
Elinchrom Rotalux Octabox 135 cm (53″)
Elinchrom Rotalux Deep Octabox 100 cm (39″)
I really love the quality of light from Elinchrom modifiers. It’s special.

As you can see, I do own a few and each one has a different quality of light – either soft and dreamy or with more contrast and deeper shadows.

Rotalux softboxes are also very easy to assemble and I find this to be a big advantage when comparing it to other brands.

Profoto Deep Umbrella White XL
Profoto Umbrella XL Diffuser
This is my fill light, super easy to set up and when used with a diffuser, it gives a very smooth and soft light.

OCF Color Gel Starter Kit
Small and handy pouch with color gels, when I want to add a little color contrast or match specific color temperature.

Tethering:

MacBook Pro
Tether Tools cable 4.6m (15 Feet)
External HDD – LaCie Rugged Mini or Porsche drives

Retouching:

Wacom Intuos Pro M

Bags:

Profoto Backpack M
Ortlieb Velocity backpack with F-Stop medium shallow ICU

www.marekwurfl.com | @marekwurfl