We’ve all seen countless portraits or headshots where the subject is obviously uncomfortable. They’ve got a disconnected look in their eyes, or they are just not present, or they are trying too hard not to try too hard. What went wrong? Just as a film director would speak with an actor on set, we are responsible for the performance of our subject. We must maintain awareness of how our clients feel if we want to direct them to be more present.
I recently picked up a new set of V-Flats for the studio from the aptly named V-Flat World. V-Flats, a studio staple, are typically comprised of a pair of two 4x8 sheets of foam core—black on one side, white on the other—taped together along their long end to create a book-style configuration of panels that can be opened (hence the V in V-Flat) or closed.
Glamour photography has evolved in many ways over the years. At the heart of it is strength, beauty and a magical je ne sais quoi in the person being photographed. We see these images in makeup advertisements in magazines, on TV and on billboards. They tell us what it means to be a strong, beautiful, magical woman. But what about the times in our lives when we don’t feel anywhere near this ideal we see everywhere—like when we have just had a baby and are too overwhelmed to even take a shower or brush our hair daily; or we have just experienced a major loss and could care less how we look because we feel so miserable; or when illness takes over our body, mind and soul? I specialize in shooting glamour for women in that last scenario.
January 2019 Inspirations: Best Glamour Images Inspiration can come when you least expect it. As photographers, we are visual artists.…
If you’ve never been to White Sands National Monument in the gorgeous state of New Mexico in the American Southwest, you have truly missed out on an experience. It’s my favorite of the Southwest’s long list of travel hot spots, better even than the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Carlsbad Caverns, the Valley of Fire and the Las Vegas Strip. This 275-square-mile patch of white gypsum in the desert sent my brain reeling with excitement and possibilities. So when an opportunity came along to produce a photography art book that needed one specific theme, I knew where I wanted it to be: White Sands, New Mexico.
Photographers often find themselves torn between the color version of their edit and a black-and-white conversion of the same shot (you even see photographers post both versions on social media, asking their followers which one they prefer). This is almost certainly indicative of a photographer making the unfortunate mistake of not having a complete vision for a shot up front. While you can convert an image to black and white arbitrarily and find success with it, I find far more consistent results when you set out to shoot monochrome from the start. But where do you start?
