"nino batista" - Behind the Shutter

Social Influencers: The New Commercial

Once upon a time, a photographer in any genre would try to get the attention of magazines, newspapers, clothing designers, automakers, restaurants, hospitals, sports teams and music venues in hopes of landing a gig. Whether it was a one-off campaign or steady work on a retainer, the holy grail of good-paying commercial work has always come from big companies. And while the dollar amounts of these major-client jobs is still highly desirable and worth the effort to land, there is a new type of commercial role that has emerged in the last few years, and it’s exploding by the hour: social influencer.

Why You Should Intentionally Shoot For Black & White

If changing an image to black and white is a careless afterthought, what are the chances that you’ve created a monochrome masterpiece? When we change our mindset from “I don’t know what else to do with this so black and white it is” to “I am going to create black-and-white photos today when I shoot,” a radical thing happens: Your monochrome images become more focused and striking.

How Light Diffusion Can Affect Your Portrait’s Mood

Emotion in your portrait work comes from your subject almost entirely, for lots of obvious reasons. That said, other elements in your portraits can affect and enhance their overall mood—especially the lighting. Simple decisions about light diffusion can alter or augment the mood you are after. There are differing opinions on what light diffusion does to a portrait’s mood. It’s subjective. But there are some tried and true light diffusion techniques that work consistently to evoke or enhance specific moods in human subjects.

The Power of a Solid Business Alliance

Strategic alliances in business can make major differences in the success of all parties involved if done correctly. This is true for just about any industry, but is often overlooked in the arts. It should never be about competition as much as it should be about synergy (a business buzzword that usually makes my stomach turn, but stay with me here). Aligning your photography business with someone else’s can be the injection of energy you were always looking for if you’re open to it and go about it the right way.

Hit the Road: Working With Models on Destination Shoots

It’s one thing to be a portrait artist who uses modeling talent in your work regularly, but it’s very different when you take that show on the road. Shooting locally is complicated enough, but things become exponentially more complicated when you do the same thing out of state, and especially out of the country. Each new project in each new town presents new problems. But all model photography requires a lot of the same concerns and methods. In this article, I approach these from the artist side of things, which is how I’ve been approaching travel for about half a year now exclusively. I am going to focus on planning and executing amazing projects on the road, but not how to get paid model photography work on the road (something I don’t do anymore, but that’s another article).

Retouching Senior Portraits in Photoshop CC

I began teaching myself how to retouch images with Photoshop version 4.0 (Photoshop CC 2018 is considered version 19). To this day, I still use some of the original processes and tools for retouching. In this article, I discuss the most important step in retouching, then explore the basics of retouching skin, enhancing eye color with blending modes and layer masks, and, finally, problem-solving stray hairs.

Location Glamour

Bedrooms, bathtubs and showers, fancy houses, hotel rooms and pools are all common glamour photography locations that have been used for decades, and for good reason: They work. Shooting “sexy” outdoors conveys a risqué feeling because of its potential voyeuristic appeal. Here are some things to keep in mind when you head outside to create glamour sets or editorials.

Why Photographers Should Embrace Digital Retouching

Why Photographers Should Embrace Digital Retouching with Nino Batista Want more information on this article? Get access to video content and additional supporting images. Launch the December 2017 issue of…