So my favorite financial planner was in the studio yesterday for an updated photo for his website and various social media uses. We talked beforehand about the feel and emotional impact he wanted the images to convey.  He said: Accessibility, confidence, warmth. And from that, it was my job to interpret it into a visual representation. At that point, decisions are made; lens selection, background selection, RAW or jpeg? (Of course RAW, just kidding!) lighting set-up, shutter-speed, f/stop, white balance, reflector, grids, gels, etc, the list goes on. And yet, it’s all so cool when it comes together, like building a puzzle on a deadline :)

tnt

(till next time)

What do you get when you bring thirteen naturopathic doctors into the studio, after hours, for a group shot for their collective website? If you stick with it long enough, the above shot! We started off with some simple groupings and as we shot some interesting forms started to take shape, much like arranging musical notes on a scale. After a dozen or so shots, I’d have them rearrange themselves then make my compositional tweaks. We ended up shooting about 8 or 9 groupings.

After the final shots, when I knew we had it in the can (memory card?) I let them do what ever they wanted for fun. That’s when all the personalities came out and I really like this one for all the different expressions. It’s always a good idea to have a final fun shot like this when shooting certain groups in the studio or on location. Even better when they bring the beer and pizza!

I really enjoy shooting senior images and working with high school juniors on their yearbook photos. It is such a special time in a young persons life and senior photos have morphed from the boring old “yearbook” photo of days of old (you should see mine!) to be more fashion-oriented with hipper, more modern looks. I think it will be awesome to look back at their senior photo set as what they looked like at a point in time before their lives really took off!

It seems I have done a lot of guys lately and specifically guys who don’t like to sit for photos! It’s always a fun challenge when after a few clicks, they ask “are we done?” My job is to take their nervousness or nervous energy and turn in into making them a participant and collaborator interested in the final images. I tend to shoot seniors quickly and have lots of staging, lighting and posing set-ups in mind even if we don’t get to accomplish all of them.

Daniel, pictured here, was one such fella. Very accomplished as a musician and cross-country runner, he had a no-nonsense air about him that took a while to break the ice and get him on my side. Even though I endeavor to keep to a minimum showing the subject images from the camera’s LCD during the shoot , in this case it helped to draw Daniel in and to be more involved with the shoot, once he could see the quality of the lighting and images we were getting. It’s always a good idea to keep your peripheral vision on high alert and allow spontanaity to happen during the shoot and not be so “locked in” to your original concept that you miss some great shots that are happening right in front of you.

I raided my daughter’s bedroom for her little keyboard which added a nice propping touch and a little hard graphic element to the first shot. The second shot was our last of the session where he trusted me enough to let down his guard and allow a bit of his true personality come out. He and his family was very pleased with our efforts :)

A little warmth for these cold days! Had some fun in the studio with pin-up models Miranda and Kayla, friends of my assistant Aaron. We set up several backgrounds and collected a vast assortment of props beforehand to create some cool situations the models could seamlessly move into. The lighting set-up was pretty consistent, large light bank for the main and some undiffused  heads for edge. Aaron brought his extensive collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia and we used them for quite a few images from the shoot. These two images are my favorites of each of the models and I think the props helped with the mood of the shots – an old rotary desk phone from my Mom’s answering service and some glam sunglasses left over from a Halloween party.

Don came to the studio recently for a new portrait to update his business card, website, and social media. He is a keynote speaker, communications coach and presentation expert as it says on his card. My time with him ended way too soon; he was one of those rare individuals completely comfortable in their own skin and he had much wisdom to dispense about the art of human communication. I was like a sponge trying to remember all that he shared with me and so much of it rang true from my own experience. I am a sucker for analogies and aphorisms and Don was full of them! I should have fumbled around with my gear more to stall him and hear a few more of his stories. Find out more about this great personality @ www.wrighttalk.com.

Jake just sent me his graduation announcement from Beaverton High School and it reminded me that I hadn’t posted these from his senior portrait session! His parents chose a nice vertical portrait of him in a white button-down shirt for the announcement photo but I like these two, one outdoors and one in the studio that show two completely different sides of him. Jake played basketball for the varsity team this season and we wanted to work something of that in and I chose to light the brown background with an orange gel to tie in the schools colors. What do you think?

We’ve all been there before. You spend a good hour or so getting the studio all set up for a portrait session- backdrops, lighting, remote triggers, cameras loaded with memory cards, and have shot some tests before the appointment. You’re all set as the time approaches. And you wait, five, ten, fifteen minutes and still no client. At twenty minutes after the agreed-to time, you call the client to ask if they are on their way or did something come up? At this point you are totally at their mercy. Now I know several other professions charge full-fees when a client cancels at the last minute but this policy would just about kill a portrait studio’s reputation in a very short time. So what do you do now?

A month or so ago, I had three separate portrait sessions not happen because the clients simply ‘forgot’. All were rescheduled but each one said it had just slipped their minds. As crazy as this sounds, people today have so much going on that they can often lose track of the days just getting everything done. I tried to take the frustration I felt and turn it into a solution for my immediate problem. Do I charge them for the session anyway and thereby ensure that they would never use me again and trash me to their colleagues? Do I charge them a half-fee to justify to myself the time I’d already put in, which would probably result in the same results as above? That might make my ego feel better short-term and for sure lose the client long-term. Or do I try to be pro-active and find a better solution on my own?

Around about this time I had a dentist appointment coming up. I’d had it on my calendar for six months, yet on the day before my appointment, the dentist’s office called with a friendly reminder of the time of my appointment the next day. Bingo! It immediately clicked that this is what I should be doing in my own business! And it’s so easy! I even took it one step further and created a PDF file with tips on clothing selection, make-up & hair styling, props and a reminder of my payment policy. I now email this to my clients a coupla days before the shoot and follow it up with a brief phone call to ask if they have any questions. I’m happy to say since I started this small little exercise, not one client has ‘forgot’ to show up for their portrait session!

I’m still curious though, whether you’re a photographer or not, what do you do when your client doesn’t show up? I’d love your feedback :)

Arthur came into the studio recently requesting something different than I usually create for a senior portrait package. I had met him a few years earlier when I was the photographer for his sister’s Bat Mitzvah and ran into him again with his family in Ashland at the Shakespeare Festival that they attend every year. When he showed up for the session in his outfit (which included spats!) I thought he was someone selling bibles :) He claimed to have no theatrical aspirations but I could tell by his movements and mannerisms that he must have spent countless hours watching Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers movies because he had their shtick down pat and had his mom and I cracking up with his antics. Arthur had very specific ideas as to what shots he wanted to capture/perform so we just worked it out from his list. I love spending time with energetic, creative young people and it’s even more fun photographing them. I’ll still keep my eye out for his name to appear in a production or cast list sometime soon because this young man is really going places!