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

Stuck in 1988!!!!

One of the things I never get used to as a High School Senior photographer is shooting a Senior kid and realizing I went to High School with their parents! In all honesty it shocks me cause I always think when I find out, "How can ______ have a kid that old, they are my age!" Then I remember just how old I really am and sobering reality that I'm getting closer and closer to being half a century old hits me like a ton of bricks. I have to say that moment really is one of the only times I ever feel my age! One of the cool things about being extremely immature and having the worst case of Peter Pan syndrome in the world is that you really do live in a place that has long since gone away. For me, the place I live and where my reality resides is somewhere between 1983 to 1991.

The late 80's and early 90's take a beating sometimes for the fashion and the music of the times. To me the 80's rocked for music and fashion. The 80's gave us Van Halen, The Cure, W.A.S.P., Depeche Mode, AC/DC, Ice-T, NWA, White Snake, Public Enemy, Michael Jackson, Pat Benatar, Rush, Judas Priest, Run DMC, Metallica and Prince name just a few! In all honesty, when Purple Rain the movie came out I thought Prince was the coolest Mother F'er on the planet! Cool motor bike, sweet jackets with giant built-in shoulder pads, cool man heel boots, he was the lead singer in a bad ass band and the best part, he got Appollona as a girlfriend! Prince you were the man!! I digress.....

So, for today's post I am posting some images of some High School kids who parents were just High School kids themselves, at least in my mind, just the other day!

Ryan - Blackfoot Senior Photography

One cool thing about being a High School Senior photographer is that all the kids are so individual in some aspects and pretty much the same in others. This shoot I was reminded of two things that stay pretty constant in Senior guy shooting. One, the Boys want to be seen as bad-asses and two, mom's don't see their little boys as that at all! 

This Senior shoot was with Ryan Gallegos a High School Senior at Blackfoot High. Ryan is a running back and defensive back for this years Idaho UNDEFEATED 4A State Champion Blackfoot Broncos and is a phenomenal student. I know Ryan pretty well being one of his football coaches, so his shoot was very comfortable and we talked a lot about our season and what we needed to do to reach our goal of winning state (which we did!).

The next day or so Ryan and his mother came back to the studio for their view and order session. Usually for a senior session I shoot around 250 images so the family has a great variety of images to choose from. I alway show a slideshow of all the images that I take that day at the beginning of the session. The show was playing and I was looking at them feeling pretty good with what I had shot when at about the 200 image mark I hear Ryan's mom whisper, "you didn't smile in one picture." 

Sure enough, not one smile in 250 images! Ryan and I had been talking so much about winning football games that I didn't notice he was not smiling at all, but rather getting his Bad-A on! Lucky his mom was mega cool and agreed to let me shoot him one more time and make sure he smiled. I think her comment was, "We paid enough for that smile I want to see it." So the next day we shot again. I wish I could say we didn't talk more football, but that would be a lie. Here are some of the images from Ryan's sessions, including a few of him with his awesome smile. Another Senior photography lesson learned!