Honeybees, Rainy Trees, & a Sleepy Newborn

Farm Favorites

When it comes to personal portraits, there is nothing quite so lovely as choosing a setting where you can take advantage of light and space for easy poses.  I suggest this for high school and college seniors looking for individualized images.  Better than bringing along props and outfits, this can allow your calm and joy to come through more than any staged image in a studio. 

Farm and country photography is a prime example of that type of image.  I adore farm photography.  I spent most of my life on a farm and horses were a huge part of what kept my focus and sanity through the difficult times in college.  This shoot from early July was a wonderful chance to embrace the unique charm of natural light in the afternoon sun.

My subject here is a fellow horse fanatic and this made the day very enjoyable as we spent time chatting on our walk over to the pasture.  We took advantage of the natural beauty of the horses and made some beautiful, simple moments.

Playing with Perspective.

New Hampshire's White Mountains.

Just playing with perspective and lines.  I felt this was not my best, but cannot get those wooden beams and lines out of my head.  Honestly, I like perspective images like this because they force the eye to adjust over and over to understand what it is they are witnessing.  It drives my husband crazy that i will take these over and over to feed my collection with more and more distortions and revisions.

Clarence Fahnestock State Park, Putnam County, New York.

Chuang-yen Monastery, Kent Lakes, New York

Chuang-yen Monastery, Kent Lakes, New York

Portland Headlight, Fort Williams Park & Lighthouse, Portland Maine

Crisp Red Apples

Some of the lovely red apples we picked last year.

I cannot begin to explain how much it has bothered me that my eyes are being light sensitive and giving me headaches when outside in really bright daylight.  I wanted to get photos of the baby playing out in the grass and perhaps going apple picking with my husband in the next few weeks.  Last year I managed to get a sitter for him so we could pick, but this year I think seeing him grab apples from the trees would be adorable.

Apples make great natural light subjects and I was able to get a rare photo of the elusive "husband not making a stupid face" last year.  I would love to think I could do the same this year, but that remains to be seen.  Perhaps they can be convinced to sit long enough for me to take a family photo of my two boys and be able to put it up here at the house.  I want something colorful and glowing to hang on the walls.  

The elusive husband.  This one is about to flee
from our camera as they are shy creatures.

Slow going this week on the final steps with this red wedding.  I took part time job at a favorite local store to help support the ever increasing diaper costs and it has eaten into the time I normally spend on editing.  The books are ready to send to the printer though and I am happy to say the bride did her final review and approved them this morning. 

That means no more wedding related orders until the end of this month.  I will have to find time to select great fall poses and work with the bride at my next booking so we can really take advantage of her date.  Leaves will be in full color at that point and we'll be able to really make much of the colors.

Finsh What You Started

I have spoken at length about doing limited post work on images to maintain the quality of the photo.  I have also spoken about making sure to share only what you love and what most fit's the client's desire.  While I believe in doing limited "fixing", there is something to be said for making sure the best quality of image is supplied.  I rarely give clients a truly unedited look into an session or shoot. 

Normally I will remove blurry, under-lit, or otherwise poor images and crop some when there is something out of place.  I believe in deleting without mercy when it comes to making the call on what should stay after a shoot with a model.  Their portfolio is what will get them work, and anything that is in the portfolio is a reflection of my thoughts and process.

This is a perfect before and after of images done with a lovely model just last month.  She sat with me after the shoot and we selected out favorites while removing those that did not make the grade. Out of 73 images shot, we had just 23 that made the final selection to see what would be done in editing.  From those 23, 17 made a final debut on the CD emailed to her for adding to the portfolio she worked to compile, and I believe five are currently on display.

I wanted to talk about this because of the recent release of images or the American Olympic Team.  These were taken at an event with a limited amount of time to work with each subject, but I feel that much more could be achieved if simple technique and a little editing was applied.  This is the article from Solstice Visuals that I first viewed when a fellow photographer posted it on a forum for industry professionals and hobbyists.

Outrage Over The Photographs Of The United States Olympic Team

 This "outrage" from the photography industry came from the awkward posing, off putting cropping, poor backdrop choice, and just blogging choices made in posing and details.  When viewing the first collection I believed perhaps this was taken by a student or amateur photographer and displayed without time for editing.  At this time, I believe that there was inexperience and a lack of post work.  There are signs of a dirty lens, poor alignment, poor lighting, and very little care for the backdrop that could have been solved by just pulling down more of the paper roll after ripping became evident.

For comparison I wanted to include this second link, with images from the same person (image #6) other photographers taken at the very same event.  While obviously not all fit the same aesthetic, a huge difference is visible in the lighting quality and time taken to create a finished product.  Even the final image, one that is in a very unfinished format, shows some real promise as a "behind the scenes" moment.

Olympic Portraits, Part I: American Athletes

From this second group I see images that have been polished and finished without an overload of retouching  to remove the quality of the image.  I try to keep a similar quality, but understand the desire to prove that post work is not always needed.  What needs to be focused on is keeping images pleasing and avoiding sloppy work.

Photography as an Art

Hiking purgatory chasm in 2007 while at JWU - taken with my pocket camera by a friend.

I remember being a teen, well some of it.  I remember thinking my parents knew nothing about the world, and that I was always going to be as cool as I was in high school.  And then I grew a brain and moved on.  I was told I could not march with my class at graduation because I had taken too many alternative courses for home schooling and did not meet the number of requirements for a diploma from the high school that had once told my parents I had no hope of ever going to college.

Macro Photography of college landscaping post rainstorm - my "artistic" period in 2005/06.

Three months later I started college and held a 4.0 GPA and a part time job in a huge city.  I relaxed by taking photos with a little P&S (point and shoot) at the school stable.  I excelled in business classes and learned skills that make running the studio much easier, but never really thought much about photography beyond taking some fun images.  I remember thinking that the exhibits in the art school across the street where a joke at times - I still have no idea how a toilet seat with a sledge hammer wedged in it is supposed to make me "feel" something or than confused.

I take my photography seriously only in how it is something that can always be improved upon.  I don't claim it needs to be an expression of the world, just that it should capture something worth a second look.  I certainly don't feel the need to go ruining perfectly good toilets just to make a pretty picture.  

I say this because I think there are some pieces of "art" that are not always worth sharing.  I don't think it is fair to go charging a person hundreds of dollars for images of their family taken with a pocket camera that you claim makes you a professional.  I also feel that there is something to be said for trying to hone your craft before going to charge.  I may not used the most advanced camera out on the market, but I do use advanced lens attachments and take the time to practice with them before using them on paid shoots.

Macro Photography from the New York Botanical Gardens in 2010.
This was taken as part of the test images for my back-up camera.

I enjoy taking photography of the natural world to relax.  On occasion I even sell prints of the rare shots that I am comfortable sharing with others.  I take portraits seriously though.  If I am paying a model, or being paid to make something that a client will hang on their wall, it had better look like it was worth the money they are paying for my time and services. 

I write this today as part of a a warm up to my next post concerning the photography of the American Olympic team that has been covered on Reddit and other major sites.  I will post an analysis that I have been working on later, but this is partially based on those images, and partially on a comment from a friend on her social media about how it seems becoming a "photographer" is the new thing to do.

You Look Smashing!

Earlier this week my son turned one.  I was agonizing over what approach to use for his cake-smash photos because I wanted to capture the entire event without going too artistic and loosing the quality of the moment for the sake of one or two images.  After having to fight my instincts as a mother, I went for a bold color choice in frosting and made an effort to really light the area at an insane level so I could ensure that every little detail was visible.

 

The boy was an amazing model yet again, really getting into the moment and giving me some wonderful expressions in his wild celebration.  The start was just a little timid, poking the frosting then looking at and licking his fingers.  For a moment I even thought he was going to go Godzilla on the poor cake and belly flop on it in some sort of mini pile-driver.  He got his feet, hands, even his bottom into the act when he sat on the cake at the very end.  

 

Thankfully it was followed by a bath since we have a full bath with tub at the studio, but I got stuck with the epic clean-up while my husband simply took bath duty.  The hardest part of the whole event was getting the little man to bed that night after the amazing sugar rush.  Thankfully he did nod off around one in the morning, but by then I was already to tired I was debating if he would ever have cake again.

Directions In Photography

I do not claim to be the world's best photographer. I have spent years learning and teaching others, but I will never claim to know everything about my craft. I shared a blog recently about being humbled and shaken when a peer gave a scathing comment on my request for advice, and I still find myself looking at work sometimes saying “I should have moved just a smidgen to the right” or “I wish I waited just a second longer so his eyes would be slightly more relaxed from the last flash”. These are the worries and thoughts of a typical photographer, and may have been distilled perfectly in a quote a fellow photographer made in a forum I was once reading:

A GOOD DAY FOR ME IS REMEMBERING TO POINT THE CAMERA IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

This is a man who has his work in Vogue, Elle, and a million other places I can just hope to achieve in my lifetime. But his words have more meaning when you think about how a photographer is actually doing their client a service by freezing a moment in time.

Expression is huge, but only lasts a second. Shock and joy on the groom's face as his bride comes into view, or that warm candid moment when the Mother-of-the-Groom gives her son a kiss with tears rolling down her cheeks because he is all grown up; these are all something you can only capture just as they happen. These are true moments of candid photography. I need to be on my toes every moment at a a shoot so that I can capture the perfect image.

Perhaps even more so than weddings, working with children requires almost inhuman speed and attention to detail. I am talking about this because it will be a vital part of my shooting tomorrow and is weighing on my mind. Tomorrow is my son's cake smash sitting. Cake smash photography is a quickly growing avenue for child centered studios because of the honesty and silliness it embodies. To make it simple, a toddler is placed on a bare backdrop with a cake or cupcake in front of them and the photographer documents the following chaos.

I was introduced to the idea while working for a chain studio that absolutely forbid it because they kept a strict policy against food in the camera room. When I moved on the the studio chain, where I was responsible for training newer photographers, it was something very warmly welcomed. Now that my own studio is open, I am more than open to doing this kind of work and will soon begin looking for a local bakery to coordinate our efforts.

My son is a perfect test subject for the studio. He is constantly in my advertising and I have begun to market him out to infant and toddler talent agents because his aptitude for brilliance in the camera room could honestly make him a good deal of money to put aside for college. I also use him to test out new concepts and techniques, something I do often in an attempt to grow as an artist... but as a mother I am facing some worry that I will dislike the results.

What I want to do is really intensify the images tomorrow by choosing a stark white backdrop and a bold shade of blue-green for his cake. Next is where I am reaching my point of tension, because it is a huge risk as well. What I want to do is use a very tight depth of field and play with a slight distortion in focus. My goal is to change how we see the moment and bring out the “dirty” part of the experience.

Unfortunately, cake-smash is the kind of photography where one cannot simply “reset and try again”. The child's reaction will inherently be different because they understand that they have absolute freedom in that moment. As a mother, I want these images to be something my family can cherish just as much as myself. As an artist, I want to take advantage of this ideal opportunity to advance my skills as a photographer.

I will make the executive decision tomorrow as my husband places our boy on the subject mark. Once I can review the images I will post a selection and allow the results to be seen. But for tonight all I can do is take the advice of my photography hero and just hope that “my camera is pointed in the right direction”.

Prices. They Are There For A Reason

 Because this will be a long post, I am going to start with a touch of pre-myspace humor...

And now for the serious part:

There are any number of ways a person can find a wedding photographer, and equally as many ways a person can complain about the prices they charge for that photography. While I cannot say that spending more will always result in better images, I will say that there is usually a fair price-range where photographers are paid well without inflating their prices just to make a profit. To explain why I price things the way I do, I'm going to let you inside my world for what I typically do for a wedding and what it costs me.

To make it simple, I will break down how my time is spent and what it would cost if I were to hire out for a service I provide in my own studio; this will also cover some of the expenses I have based on gear and preparation or maintenance before and after the wedding. First I'll explain my gear and then give you a price breakdown of what that means. Next is the more abstract issue of what I actually get paid for my time. Third, we will cover why items are priced the way they are and what it often costs to print or compile albums with and without post-production. Finally, I will let you in on how to weight the value of the product against the price you see on paper.

THE GEAR

I use a mid-grade DSLR camera to capture clear and precises images without costing my clients and myself a fortune. That camera then requires lenses since they are not included with most professional grade items; a small lens made for macro photography and or close-up work, and a higher end telephoto lens that is used for the majority of a wedding day. This also requires the use of an external flash unit, not the kind built onto the camera, including the soft box diffusers that help reduce glare while making the moment bright enough to capture in venues with mood lighting. And finally I carry no less than three 16GB cards and two extra batteries beyond what is already in the camera body.

To ensure that I can always serve my customers, I not only have these two lenses and my regular camera body, but must also supply an entire second set of body and lenses as well. So that first set of three expensive items now needs to be doubled. That means that I am usually working with about $2300 in regular gear in my hands or at my waist, and a back-up set that costs about $1800 even though it usually just stays in the car . Now consider that many weddings request a second photographer to cover events that are going on at the same time in different locations, this means a third set of gear in the $1850 – $2300 range because we must have a back-up available if one camera was to break and two must be in use.

Now considering that I need to cover all these items against theft, I also pay for insurance on each item; so a little portion of each wedding goes to covering insurance on the equipment involved. Just as limo drivers must have insurance on their limo, it would be a poor choice to hire a photographer without coverage to protect your images because of their equipment failure or loss. Considering that insurance also covers my ability to keep from being sued if I was to somehow have items stolen or otherwise lose the photos between wedding and upload, it is a good investment for my client's money and something they should be pleased about. I mention in every wedding contract what is covered for their loss and what they will receive back in the case of a problem just to cover all the bases. In general, I list the equipment coverage at about $125 for each event needing a single photographer.

TIME = MONEY

The work for a wedding on my part actually begins well before the big day. It starts out unpaid - when I first receive an email or phone call from the bride inquiring about the date, rates, and my packages. In general one of the three basic outlines I offer works the best for budget and needs, so they choose something and edit up or down as desired. I begin to check with second shooters, venues, and any other individuals I am required to coordinate with such as a planner for out-of-state brides. From there it is email, phone, and if possible a face-to-face consultation so that I can have an outline of exactly what is desired for specific shots, what time the ceremony starts, who I am photographing in total (not just the bride and groom are included), and how many images the client would like to have as a final count.

I offer a free consultation because brides often want to know what they are paying for before they hand over the money. I agree with this and want to know if something is being expected that I cannot provide for the price their budget will allow. Once everything is covered in that first free consultation as contract is signed and a deposit of $250 is made to guarantee that no double booking will take place. From there everything has a price.

Many couples engage a photographer for a studio shoot before their wedding for engagement photos. I run these based on my regular studio rates, usually about $85.00 for a two person sitting of one hour. They receive the ten best images in printed or digital form (their choice) or can order save-the-date and other announcement information. I also give the option of a bridal boudoir sitting in place of engagement photos. This is also about an $85.00 value and again includes the best ten edited images. Many brides choose this second option and give their groom the album as a gift before the wedding.

Two to three weeks prior to the event I visit the venue for the ceremony and the reception to take test-images. I price this visit at a flat $50.00 based on the normal amount of time, equipment, and effort. Aside from making sure I know where I am going, this gives me accurate data in my light meters for planning equipment. I also use these test shots as a visual reference when planning any posed images or where to place myself for maximum visual range when shooting in my typical photo journalistic style. Because the majority of my work is candid, I need to ensure that there will be no obstructions to my line of sight sense camera cannot see through walls. This visit is part of the package cost, and essential for ideal images.

Once the planning is done, payments are processed, it is all busy work. My “wedding” day begins almost twenty four hours before the bride starts dressing. The night prior, I pack my gear, test batteries, cards, flashes, each lens and body, and make sure that I have the correct location for the ceremony and reception in my GPS as well as any other photo areas. Gear is loaded into the vehicle, and an inspection of the car is done to avoid problems with the tires, oil, fuel or anything else. At this point, I am actually working “off the clock” but I consider this something that should be done to ensure that I am prompt an prepared.

I arrive at the first location, usually where the bride is preparing, at least ten minutes prior to the planned start time so that I can assemble my camera and locate essential people. From the moment my lens cap is removed, I am “working” and the hourly rate included in the chosen package is being used. For simplicity sake I make about $45.00 per hour though only about $ 15.00 per hour of that is actually my pay after licenses and other costs.

Most dressing, ceremony, photo-op, and partial reception shoots last about six hours. Few contracts actually extend a full eight hours any more because the couple is willing to forgo a huge number of images of table dancing uncles to get their more precious moments on film (or the digital equivalent). Once I have captured everything included in the contract and as many candids as I can to fill the time remaining, I will thank the couple and present them with the guest cards to access their online gallery. Once the lens cap goes back on I am no longer on the clock and packing up gear to return to my studio.

THE POST- PRODUCTION

To ensure nothing is lost in transportation or translation, I make sure to download the images immediately and save double copies of the originals for safety. Most weddings of six hours result in about 2500 planned images and another 2000 true candids. I secure all of this information before even going home for the night, meaning I often see my husband still sleeping when I leave and return after he is already snoring away in bed again that night.

At this point, our running total for the cost of a six hour wedding is about $665.00 for my time and services. This is where most believe my work ends. I have shown up, taken the photos, and now all I have to do is give them the images so they can be on their way. But that is not quite it. If I handed over that full set of 4500 photos they would see perhaps four of every shot, and a good portion would have half closed eyes or other imperfections. Nothing would be the clean, soft, magazine perfect look that wedding albums are supposed to be made of, at least not yet.

After I have given myself time to recover, or gone and repeated the whole process at another wedding the very next day, as sometimes happens, it is time to begin editing the images. First I go through the images and cut out angles and images that just do not flatter. This is not because I want to force customers to only have a few pictures, but because nobody looks great in every image and this is a time to look your best. This first cull will normally thin the herd by about 1500 images. I am charging basic editing rates now, so you are paying $15.00 per hour and I am taking home about $8.00 of that after paying for the studio's rent, electrical, phone and internet. The culling process lasts about three hours and includes about three passes, leaving most 4500 image sets at about 1000 that I would truly consider working on to enhance and edit.

At this point the client is paying about $700.00 for my services in total, and I have not begun to edit in Lightroom. At this point I have some options. My first option is to send this batch of 1000 images to a Professional Retoucher at a fair market rate and have them edit everything. My second option is to post this batch to the locked gallery and allow my clients to select the images that they would like to see retouched. My third option is to continue retouching all of these images at the same rate of $15.00 per hour.

At this point, we refer to the contract, and see what option the client had elected based on the estimated cost per the average 30 images selected. Clients looking for a very editorial feel like that seen in high fashion and couture wedding magazines usually select a professional service to do full enhancements, skin smoothing, and many other tricks of the trade. The retoucher I use begins their batch pricing at $200 per 25 image batch which I must pay up front when submitting images. They have very quick turn-around and flawless results, but can be pricey when it comes to large orders not needing an excessive amount of correction and may tack on more charges based on some requests. Clients looking for removal of braces or special enhancements will face higher fees which I explain to them before placing the retouching order.

Those looking for a natural feel or not previously decided on editing agree to my fee for in-house editing based on an average time of about six hours editing. I use a number of pre-sets to encourage a warm, romantic feeling, and this allows me to cut down on time devoted to fixing pixel-by-pixel. While it does not remove every pimple from Cousin Barney's face, it will make the overall family photo farm more handsome and his skin far less red. If you have kept track, we are now looking at $15.00 per hour being paid for six hours or $90.00 for basic retouching on about 30 images. While it is not as polished as the retoucher I use through my printing center, it is less than half the price for five fewer images and lands us at $790.00 for a typical six hour wedding with one photographer.

INVESTMENT VS. COST

And for those careful enough to have clicked over to my website and checked out the tab marked INVESTMENT, you will recall that my packages are listed as starting at $900.00 and including a CD of up to 100 images with a release for printing. That means that I do lose the profit from smaller prints, but many couples will order through their gallery for oil canvases, float mounted portraits, and or unique products. I also receive a good deal of return business from bridesmaids and guests that will book me for their own weddings or from clients that return for maternity sittings when they are expecting.

I honestly work about seventeen paid hours on an average wedding from planning to post-production, so keeping that in mind let us make a final breakdown of what I pay out in costs against what I am making on a typical starter package.

Client Pays $ 945.00

State Tax (5%) $ ( 45.00 )

% of Equipment Insurance Cost $ ( 65.00 )

% of Equipment Maintenance Cost $ ( 60.00 )

Full Gas Tank for Studio SUV $ ( 50.00 )

% of State Business License Fee $ ( 35.00 )

% of Studio Rental Fee $ ( 75.00 )

% of Electrical Fee $ ( 10.00 )

Professional Certification, Monthly Fee $ (135.00 )

State Wedding Association, Monthly Fee $ (195.00 )

Yep. As you can see my take home is about on a $900.00 wedding is $275.00 for those seventeen hours. That means I make just a little over $16.15 per hour. Since I can only do a single wedding each day, and expect to do five weddings a month, that is something I consider when taking a booking. It means time lost at the studio, which costs the same monthly rent no matter how many or few sittings or weddings I take.

So now that you have seen the costs and where the fees are; how unrealistic are my prices compared to my actual costs and services? I feel they are pretty fair based on what I consider a living memory. Something shared over and over now through social media and displayed at home for years to come.

Colorful Thoughts

Sorry for the long break in posting. No excuses, I was simply too busy with other things to sit down and write out anything that would be worth reading, and I don't believe in doing something if you are not going to give it a full try. I will be sharing some of the work I have done over this period of silence, as well as a story that can help newer photographers based on my own simple mistakes.

Today we will be discussing color theory. I understand that this has been mentioned many times previously; but today I will be breaking down what exactly it means and how to use this knowledge. All of this is in an effort to help you with your color choices for clothing or accessories before a photography session and when thinking about how to edit an image in your post-work.

This is the color wheel. I know it appears to be just a bunch of colored wedges, but this diagram is actually one of the best tools ever invented for artists, designers, and fashionable dressers the world over. It is also one of the few “non-photographs” I have hanging in my studio. A clear teaching/working print hangs over my desk along with post-it notes stuck all over the place giving insight on using the colors in some dyes, editing programs, and how to white balance to best take advantage of a color if it will appear often in a session. Actually, the one I use is a bit more complex, but just as effective:

If you think back to primary school, we learn there are three primary colors. We remember that red, blue, and yellow are the basics and from those all other shades and combinations are born. Now, look at the wheel. Do you see only thee colors? Do you see just six colors? No. Even in school we learn that there are at least three more colors we can make by using the primary three; from red and blue we get purple, blue and yellow give us green, and yellow with red brings us orange. Those are joined by white - the sum of all colors, black – the absence of color, and brown – the muddled combination of three primary shades in unequal parts.

Here is what we don't learn in kindergarten... some colors make others appear brighter or stronger just by being near them. Now that I've dropped that bombshell on you, I would like to refer you back to the color wheel image above. Notice what colors are opposing on the wheel. If you draw a direct line across the wheel you will find the polar-opposite is based on that theory.

Fantastic, there are opposite colors... now why do you need to know this? Well, I am getting to that part. But first I'll give you a task: Draw a line from GREEN, across the wheel to the color it most “sets off”. What do you find there? You should be looking at RED. Yes, red and green are opposites here too. Actually, that is exactly why they are used on traffic lights in that way. Now run you finger or eye around the wheel counter-clockwise and find the “mid-point”. Now does it make sense why we use YELLOW as the “slow down” signal?

By now you are sick of me talking about traffic lights and want to know what, if anything, this has to do with your photography. Well, think about hair and eye color. Blue eyes look wonderful when the skin around them as a slightly bronzed look. Make-up companies have been using this fact to sell “color kits” for years, so why not make the same connection in your work?

One benefit of photography as a medium is that color theory can actually be applied very simply. We can coordinate with a model, make-up artist, wardrobe director, or any other person who will have input in the shoot based on a simple formula. Think of it as color algebra. You take the two colors from the wheel and select the actual unique tone that will make the highest impact to create exactly the image you seek.

( RED + GREEN ) = BEAUTY
TONE

For now I will leave you this real-life example, flaws an all. The model in this photo from over my recent break has a lovely tan and it is set off even better when posed against the rolling waves on the beach. We both felt that the chilly water and my soaked jeans were well worth the beauty of this natural and emotive atmosphere, and the colors agree perfectly with a little tweaking. In fact, I am still in the process of choosing my final modifications.

Color Theory

Going to aim for a few small updates this week since I am a little scattered between having just held a birthday party for my husband, looking into renting a better studio space, and some family issues here at home. I'll be treating you to a few nice images in these updates, and be promoting another photographer with one of them.

Today I want to discuss how to work with colors. Not in terms of how to pair things in an image, but how to shoot for an emotional impact by using the colors inherent in a setting. This will be a very visually in depth process, so I will only touch on a few emotions and the best way to communicate them in color. This will be a post of strictly my own work, though the concept is not at all something I lay claim to as an original concept; many books, blogs, and other works exist based on this topic.

If you follow traditional thinking, water is an emotional element because it is so closely related to all life. We emerge from water through the process of birth, we require water to survive must faster than food, indeed we even loos what when we feel the strongest of emotions (both joy and sorrow). So it should be no surprise that water is often an essential element of using color to transmit emotion; water is naturally blue. Using blue and purple shades are an obvious progression and can make a basic shot even more commercially presentable.

This photo was a lucky catch while on a vacation with my parents and an ex-boyfriend of mine about four years ago. I point out that there was a UV filter placed on the camera for this, so it did tint the shot slightly, but only enough to prove my point. Below is the shot taken just prior; this time without using a filter and the default settings and basic white-balance. Just looking at the two quickly, it is simple to tell how there is a dramatic feel to the filtered image.

The lesson I want you to take from this is simple, editing is not always required, but can enhance an image to the perfect level to make a sale. In this case, I am discussing non-portrait images, but the same rule applies there too. If you can frame, light, and pose well, the image will simply need to be uploaded or printed. And for now, I leave you with a few more shots where a slight addition or filtering of color has an obvious effect on the outcome.

Bright Lights

This week you get a double dose of information... Lucky You!

In this lesson we will be looking at how to use alternative styles of lighting to sculpt and complement the curves of the female body. No offense to the male models out there, but this is focused on making a big show of that big belly or those lovely curves. This can be very difficult because it requires just enough illumination on the subject to make them visible with the camera without loosing the shadows and highlights into a monotone pallet. For most poses and situations, windows are ideal light sources; but, this is not always the case.

Lets admit right now that nothing compares to the sun. I know we can blow all the money we want on strobes and such, but nothing compares to the huge fiery ball in the sky. And I didn't even mention the best part... IT'S FREE! While that should be all the sales pitch anyone ever needs, that is simply not the case, so I will continue.

Windows are fabulous backdrops, they harness the glorious free solar lighting goodness, while giving us the option of making a beautifully draped set for some fantastic silhouettes. Add a strong angle or a soft pose and you can achieve perfect shots without having to put in the hours of retouching that harsh studio lights can require. A lovely lady in some killer shoes can stand in a strong pose with her back to the camera and look over her shoulder with a fierce expression. You want there to be just a hint of curve from the chest while there can be plenty of long legs if your model is comfortable. Also remember that it can be enough to allude to sensuality through great eyes, there is never a need for the model to be nude for them to be irresistible.

“A woman is closest to being naked when she is well dressed”.
-- Coco Chanel.

The other beautiful element you should consider is perfect for maternity images, a profile pose with light from the side and slightly behind. This casts a lovely eclipse around the curve of the belly. Place the hands carefully, the arm facing the camera should be at the model's side, and the other should rest lightly on the top of the belly. If she has long hair, it can be left loose so long as the face receives enough illumination to show the profile. Work with the subject to make sure she is looking down lightly but you don't want to cause the double chin that can form with women in pregnancy from the water weight they gain.

From the base with the pose above, you can even incorporate her partner either kneeling to kiss the belly, or standing behind and placing hands on the belly as well. This must be done with attention to detail so that enough light hits the subjects to illuminate the figure partially. It may help to think of this in terms of watching an eclipse or even the cresting images taken in space as shuttles returned from the “dark side of the moon”.

“Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.”
-- E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

This is a short entry, I know. Only two alternative light styles are covered and I only described one complete pose. I do this because you should always strive think beyond what I am giving you as a starting point. Look in sports magazines and you will see some great alternate lighting styles as well. I may have over six years in a studio, but even that is just a blink of the eye when it comes to experience with all forms of lighting. Perhaps someday I will share more, but for now this is what I feel I could best explain. Enjoy.