Glamour, Beauty, Portraits and my class: Before and After

A lot of people think if you can point a camera at someone and expose it decently that you will create an awesome image and that may be the case some of the time but not in Beauty, Fashion and Portrait photography (in my humble little opinion). To me, shooting is half the equation and the post processing of the image is the second half. 

Some photographers believe you should do most of the work in camera so the image that comes straight out after your shoot should be almost sellable. I agree and I disagree. I do agree you should do all you can to expose properly, light properly and pose properly to most flatter your subject, but I do think to take your photography to the next level you have to be able to post process and retouch at the same high level as your shooting. To me, if you are a great shooter but you do not have the ability to fix a blemish, do a head swap, color correct, fix teeth, or alter some physicality of the image (that would be slimming my expanded waist line if I ever let anyone shoot me, which won't happen), you are only fighting with one hand tied behind your back and in todays market one hand is not enough hands to fight!

If you throw a rock in any direction these days and you will hit a "Professional" photographer. With so many "Pros" how do you separate yourself from the masses? To me the way to separate from the many is to be able to shoot and post process your clients images in a way that they are blown away! One of the many goals I have in this business is to be as well rounded as I can possible and to be as proficient in all aspects of photography as possible. I really feel that it is our obligation as "Professional Photographers" to do all we can to provide our clients with the highest level of images and part of that to me is educating ourselves and continued learning. With all that in mind this week I took a retouching class to be able to enhance my post processing abilities. I took the class from Julia Kuzmenko from Omaha Image Productions. It was awesome. I've been looking for a class for awhile now to help me get my editing to what I consider to be another level and I really feel Julia did that for me! So, Thanks Julia!!!

Here are some before and after images. 

Here is Julia's Facebook to see her awesome work!

https://www.facebook.com/OmahaImageProductions?ref=ts

Fashion with Becca

Last week Becca came over to the studio from Logan Utah to help me with my fashion lighting. I wanted to work on lighting with a single light on a white surface to create very clean images. A few cool things about Becca. She is a huge outdoors person and told me last year she hunted and got her first mountain lion and this year she is going to give bow hunting a try! Sad but true, it seems that Becca is more manly than me! If anyone is looking for a great blonde and very very very tall model I would highly recommend Becca as she is very easy going and cool to work with. Here are some of the images from our shoot. Thanks again Becca for making the trip over! 

Fashion Lighting with Leticia

Even though I would defiantly consider myself a portrait photographer I have a mega passion for fashion photography, fashion lighting and editing.  I really enjoy looking and studying the images in Vogue, Elle and Vanity Fair. When I look at an image I'm always trying to figure out how the photographer created it. I'm always thinking, "What modifiers did they use? How did they expose it? What kind of light did they use? How much of the image is post? What was their retouching process?" ect....ect... I have to say I LOVE images that are way better than mine. I get so excited to see an image that is beyond my skill set in either creativity or technical ability or BOTH!  When I see an image that smokes me it makes me want to get to the level of the artist who created that image. There's a scene in the movie Seabiscuit where Toby Maguire brings Seabiscuit along side of this other horse to get a good look at the other horse to make Seabiscuit run harder, that's pretty much the same way I feel when I see incredible work! When I see great work I always think, "You better run harder if you want to catch them!" 

For this shoot I wanted it to be very clean, simple and really focus on Leticia. The goal of the shoot was to create some images you might find on the pages of Elle, Vanity Fair or Vogue. We shot in my white room at the studio. Hope you enjoy the images!

Barn Doors and Grids

I have to say I'm a sucker for a great gadget! They have the spring fair in my town every year and every year I can't resist buying some dumb gadget that is suppose to change my life for the better. I've bought the magic broom, the magic mop, the magic chamois, magic pans, magic chopper, magic never-need-sharpened kitchen knives, magic glass cleaner and so on. Honestly, I think the only thing left for me to buy at the spring fair would be magic beans! Pretty much if someone puts the word magic in the name of their product I have to have it! 

Now being a portrait photographer I'm always looking for ways to light my clients better so I can make their kids portraits, family portraits, senior portraits and any other portraits look awesome! So, the other day I ordered barn doors and some grids from Alien Bee for my studio lights. Basically barn doors attach to the front of your lights and have four moving flaps that enable you to make the light more narrow or wide and directional. Grids basically are inserts that go in your lights that have a honeycomb patten. This honeycomb pattern does not allow the light to spread as far as it normally would and focuses the patten for a more precise beam of light. You use both to help you be more creative and focus the light on your clients so you are able to create different lighting patterns that will flatter them in the best way for their portraits. 

The images below are a glamour session with Katy and is my first test of Alien Bee products, so far big thumbs up!!

Fashion Practice with Kylee Hale

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have Kylee Hale in the studio to help me with my fashion lighting. My goal this year is to get hired to shoot some commercial fashion stuff. I have to say my dream job, other than being a pro golfer, celebrity chef or the O coordinator for Boise State would be a legit fashion photographer. Here are some of the image from our shoot.