LED Lighting For Seniors

The lighting technology world is changing more rapidly than ever. LED is no exception. I absolutely love the advances—anything that makes my job easier, convenient, and more fun. But I won’t sacrifice quality for any of that. If you know my work, you know I strive to get it right in the camera. I don’t use presets or extensive Lightroom or Photoshop processing to get my finished images. The images shown here are almost straight out of the camera, save for removal of blemishes and clutter.

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5 Reasons to Use Creative Lighting

In today's age of high dynamic range cameras and increased knowledge of post-production software, photographers are beginning to rely less and less on the fundamentals of lighting. I can tell you firsthand that our studio built a foundation of its success on the ability to use creative light in any situation. Lighting, in my opinion, is the first thing that we should learn as professional photographers. Lighting will dictate the location that you shoot in as well as the overall style that you are trying to achieve.

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3 Ways to Nail Bridal Prep

Taking pictures of the bride as she gets ready for the wedding ceremony on her special day is a time-honored tradition in wedding photography, but it can require a different set of skills from the traditional photos of the ceremony. I personally love the close, intimate setting and the candid shots that can be captured during bridal prep. Of course, it does take a little planning, a good deal of forethought, and the right mindset to bring out the best in the bride, the bridesmaids, and the hair and makeup artists. Here are three keys to photographing bridal preps that I've found to be extremely helpful:

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The Sub-Stories You Must Cover on the Wedding Day

As wedding photographers, it’s important for us to step away from capturing only that which we think will impress our peers. We need to talk to our clients about why wedding photography is important to them. We must go beyond great shots of the couple, and truly tell the whole story of their wedding day. We need to artfully capture their details. We need to attentively capture fleeting moments. And we should offer suggestions on how to create moments that may not happen on their own. If we do this, we become better as photographers, we enjoy better album and portrait sales, and we earn the referrals of our clients and our vendors.

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5 Tips to Bring Body Positivity Into Your Sessions

If you want clients of all shapes and sizes to feel confident working with you, they need to first see that you have an active interest in welcoming them into your studio. It is very intimidating for a plus-size client to reach out to a photographer, no matter how beautiful their work is, if the photographer’s entire portfolio consists of only one body type again and again. What’s more, working with models will help you to become more adept at working with larger bodies before offering your skills to paying clients. When a photographer isn’t comfortable working with people of size, believe me, it really shows, and the results can range from awkward to devastating.

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5 Must-Have Modifiers

When it comes to crafting killer quality of light, it’s all about modifiers. These light-shaping tools come in a variety of shapes, sizes and interior finishes. When attached to the front of strobes, modifiers help control the quality, shape, direction, spread, and amount of contrast, as well as how quickly the light falls off. While some have more versatility than others, there is no one-size-fits-all modifier. Each has its own unique characteristics, and each produces a different set of results.

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Posing Tips For Powerful Boudoir Images

I’m not going to give you 10 poses to memorize, or give you different posing ideas for different body types. While these kinds of tips are certainly helpful in expanding your posing repertoire, they don’t help you understand how to flatter the female body. Instead, I’m going to give you my favorite posing tweaks to help you learn to think critically about ways to make any body look longer, curvier, and more feminine.

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Picture-Perfect Beauty Images

Shooting beauty photography shouldn't be inherently tricky. Still, every day, I see photographers struggle to nail what I would consider a traditional beauty image—something worthy of a beauty campaign that you'd see in stores like Sephora or Mac. Whether you're a photographer interested in beauty and fashion photography or just want to learn new creative skills to take your portraiture from boring to “wow,” below, you'll find five secrets to help you create picture-perfect beauty images.

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3 Overlooked Posing Secrets

Over the years that I've spent in the wedding photography business, I've found that one of the biggest obstacles we photographers come up against is time—or rather, the lack of it. Sometimes it's hard to get the bride, groom, and wedding party on the same page in the little amount of time we have for each specific stage of the shoot.  One thing really helps me to work around this issue: I make use of a workflow that allows me to quickly position the bride and groom in various poses and get the shots I need in just a few minutes. I can get a ton of great pictures, and at the same time catch up if I'm running behind for any reason, or if I just have a really tight time frame to work with.

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5 Ways to Use a Strip Box

I love my strip boxes. My go-to's are the Profoto D2 line and the Profoto 1x6 RFI strip boxes with grids. I use these light modifiers for my maternity, fitness and boudoir clients, because of the control and impact they have when shaping light. You can use them to create gorgeous directional light that focuses on drama. And who doesn't enjoy an excellent dramatic photograph?

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