An upstart record label and recording group out here in Albuquerque, New Mexico recently approached me about getting professional photo shoots done to be part of a promotional package that they are putting together to shop around for interested parties. The photos were meant to be done in a stylized GQ fashion.
This weekend I got together a couple of friends who aren’t that camera shy and made a big shindig in the downtown albuquerque area. This was one of the first planed theme shoots and it was the first time that I had any kind of vision going into a shoot…
and as a result I just ended up being one of those shoots where I just wung it as usual. I guess it’s just and old habit that I have but no matter how much pre plan and production in mind I always operate best when I’m just going with the flow and overcoming the challenges.
The big challenge was trying to handle all the different peopled what were present in the shoot and dealing with all their personalities meeting all at the same time. It’s not so much that they were difficult to deal with it’s just that “Too many cooks” problems you deal with when you try to get stuff done.
It was rather fun getting a bunch of people together for just an hour or so to just get together but the over all drawback of having to play a game of Model Carousel and getting everyone in enough.
When all is said and done we headed to bar, had a drink and just fucked around like normal human beings.
Since I started shooting portraits I’ve started to notice how slight details effect the image. Backgrounds, location, time of day, present light, wardrobe, hair makeup, Space, Ect. But there’s one detail that really makes or breaks the success of a photo-shoot, and that would be how easy the model is to work with. This isn’t necessary to say that some models are awful drama inducing divas who are impossible to deal with but it’s a manner of personalities working well together. I’ve been with some models who have been very stone like doesn’t interact well and sometimes require some extra effort to get the photos out of them. There are others who are just the opposite and approach photo-shoots as play time and just like to be free and crazy which to a photographer who is looking for moments, like myself, is perfect.
This last week I did two photo-shoots with two people who really find themselves on the side of just having fun of shoots. Tara and Francesca are two people who I have worked with before in the past and they have been two of my favorite people to work with. Neither of them take themselves too seriously, they’re both incredibly humble and over all just fun people to be around. And as an added bonus they’re good looking.
The first shoot last week was with Tara who is not a model by trade but certainly has the talent and look of one. She’s tiny, adorable and her biggest strength she has no fear. We did our shoot in downtown Albuquerque and her adventurous spirit was beautifully on display throughout. Our goal was to just move around find interesting locations and goof around with the camera. This lead us on an adventure all around downtown, into a park and hijacking the Hyatt’s lobby.
Her willingness to move around, try something new, and even take risk during shoots makes her such a pleasure to work with. She has a lot of good stories she’s easy to talk which makes making a connection with your subject all the more easy. It makes shooting a much all more enjoyable of an experience.
Now onto the veteran, Francesca. She’s been doing modeling much longer than I’ve been shooting and has been a great asset to my photography. She’s always eager to go on a shoot she knows how to pose herself and give different looks and she takes direction very well.
Francesca is very fun loving, and playful and as result tries to pear pressure others into doing shoots with her (Which is fine by me.) She’s also not afraid to try something new and will take direction like a champ. We did our shoot down by Tingley Beach in Albuquerque and we wanted to get that “it’s now summer” feel. Out doors, Near the Rio Grand river, Trees all around and plenty of opportunities for something different.
What Francesca does so well is being confident. She know she looks good, she knows what she’s doing and when the camera is on her she is always active in front of it. Sometimes you need to bottle her up to get the shots of her but once you get on the same page as her the magic happens.
Both of these women are incredible people both in front of and away from the camera and I enjoy having them around. The truly represent what I enjoy about portrait photography. Their patient, daring, receptive, and most of all gorgeous. They’re amazing to work with and I can’t wait to get them in front of the camera again.
I’ve recently decided to start doing some editing videos using light room to show my editing process. What I like to do, what I don’t like to do and just goof around with the differen’t things I can do with photos.
I’m probably going to start being less formal in these just so I can bring out more of my personality out. There are so many tutorials out there these days that I don’t necessarily want to do what everyone else does.
This is also a part of an Adobe Student Rep program that I’m doing this semester so if you want to get a month free trial of Adobe Creative Cloud you can click this link http://adobe.ly/1jr9L5U and you’ll get access to all of adobe’s creative software to take for a test drive.
Trying to be creative during a college semester can be extremely difficult, especially when all the classes you are taking are the University core requirement and you have a part time job that are not exactly designed to stimulate your need for creative production. This becomes incredibly prevalent for photographers who think to themselves on a regular basis, “I would rather be out shooting.”As opposed to whatever political science class that you’e sitting in. If this is the situation that you find yourself in the only advise that seems plausible is to make time to go shoot every once and a while. This can be fairly hard to do sometimes but if you can pull it off it can be extremely rewarding.
A few weeks ago in Albuquerque it finally felt like winter had fully kicked in with overcasting clouds and a light amount of snow which at first doesn’t seems too conducive for photography but I though to myself that if the overcast kept up it would be perfect for a mid afternoon shoot downtown. Sadly I misjudged New Mexico’s ability to stay consistent weather wise and it went back to being in the mid 60’s with bright sunny skies. However that didn’t stop me. I put out a post on facebook if anyone wanted to take part in a impromptu photo-shoot down town and like most statuses it go a handful of likes but not a huge response. However one person did happen to respond.
Tara, a friend of mine that I have done photos of several times in the past was the only one who responded to the call so we arranged to meet up down town to snap off some shots in some of the back allies, parking grarges and other interesting locations in the down town area.
One thing you’re always going to find in any downtown metro area is various degrees of street art and graffiti which can always be a great back drop for urban style portraits. Whether they are just a bunch of random tags some hooligans put behind random buildings or if they were beautiful works or art by a local artiest it’s always a great scene to add to your photos. The thought of shooting in back alley’s can seem a little bit sketchy but if you play it smart and don’t draw a whole bunch of attention to yourself you’ll be just fine. People will often leave you alone if you leave them alone. Especially when you’re shooting.
One thing that should be kept in mind at all times is lighting. Being that this was done in the middle of a bright day it was important to find shaded areas to get nice even lighting. There are of course other techniques and styles you can use to manage the light but the important thing is that you do what you feel works best for what you want to do.
The most important thing with being out on a shoot is to have fun really. If this was in anyone a more professional shoot with the photos having a more distinct purpose I would have taken in more seriously but this shoot really was for the sake of having fun. Tara is a relaxed and easy going person to be around and it made shooting with her all the more simple. You don’t have to get into insane director mode and you don’t have to be picky you just have to shoot.
I’m not only doing random portraits over the semester either I’m also doing freelance work with my universities independent student news paper so I also get to do that kind of photo work which is really exciting. Hopefully I get to do more photos in the near future.
This past weekend was Albuquerque Comic Con (ACC) and as previously mention I went to to cover the event in a photographic fashion. This year the event was being held at Hotel Albuquerque down in Old Town and while it was a great venue it came with some of the hardest conditions to shoot in. 2 factors played into making this assignment challenging .1) The lighting was awful. It was a dimly lit hotel all over the show floor using mainly tungsten light bulbs with some areas letting natural light in through windows. 2) Incredibly tight spaces with a large turnout made crowding and moving about the area difficult. Both situations were manageable however with just a little know how, patience and letting go of some nit picky things.
The main thing I needed to figure out was how I was going to deal with the low lighting. Being that the light was so low I pushed the ISO to 6400 on my D600 and was shooting at a wide open aperture. The workhorse lense I was using all day was my 85mm f1.8g and it pretty much never came off the camera body. Ideally I would have liked to stop down to f2.8 or f3.2 to get some added sharpness and depth of field but I needed all the light I could get so wide open at 6400 was where I had to go.
As a result I had to sacrifice keeping slight amount of grain out of the images and the risk of missing focus on the subjects in order to get properly exposed images and cut down on motion blur. As an added bonus for shooting at f1.8 I created some excellent Bokeh (out of focus areas) to cause awesome subject isolation. Now a lot of other photographers that were there covering the event were handling the low light differently by using a flash. There is nothing wrong with using a flash but I personally don’t like using an on camera flash that is going to cause some awkward shadows in the background and not to mention being that I wasn’t there shooting in an official capacity I didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself while I was on the floor. (Note: I was aloud to shoot this event I just wasn’t there for a publication or affiliated with the con itself.)
So the main thing I did to handle the crowded spaces was to stick with my already tried and true style of shooting candidly/journalistically. As previously mentioned in a past article on convention photography you see that a lot of people will stop the cosplayers in the hall and ask them to pose or take a photo with someone else. At this event especially it caused some problems with blocking traffic and resulted in some missed opportunities to capture moments as opposed to posses. So by shooting in aperture priority and high ISO and keeping tabs on what shutter speeds I was getting I just kept shooting on the go. There were times when I would miss focus or get some annoying backlighting messing up my exposure but for the most part this style served me well. I couldn’t quite nail focus on every shot I took but being that I was shooting candidly and not posed portraits I didn’t lose much sleep over not having the sharpest image possible.
Now it wouldn’t have been a convention if my cosplay friends hadn’t asked me to take some portraits of their cosplays. This is how the final challenge of the con took place, finding a secluded area to shoot that has useable lighting. Long story short I was able to find a place outside with no people around to get some portraits of my friends. Now I could lower my ISO to low and noise free levels and stop down my aperture to f3.5 and f4 to get that added sharpness.
Overall it was a great event and I got some stellar images out of the whole thing. So far I’ve been getting incredible feedback and it’s always great to shoot cosplay.
Patience is one of the most underrated qualities a photographer can have when it comes to shooting. Especially when it comes to shooting some difficult subjects, in this case children. Children seem to have this unlimited tank of energy that is feeding into their motors at all time. A quality that I feel most adults still envy. But because of this constant energy it’s impossible to get them to hold still and keep them in one place long enough to get a shot.
This weekend I was asked to do a shoot with someone I’ve worked with before and get photos of her and her daughter. The little girl in this situation was a perfect example of the previously mentioned motor with an infinite fuel tank. To the mother in this situation it seemed like a lost cause getting her to hold still and get photos but I assured her that I could get in done. When I shoot photos I’m looking for moments as opposed to posses and this shoot was a great example of that. As opposed to getting the images you would see out of a sears portrait studio I want to capture the interaction between the subjects and try to bring out relationship between a mother and her young daughter.
Containing a child’s personality is like trying to catch a bullet with your bare hands. The best you can do is get the child to feel like they’re playing along. While at a local park it can be very easy for a child to get distracted but instead of looking at this as a frustrating situation you should look at it as an opportunity to capture a great moment. There is nothing more nostalgic than a child treating the whole world as it’s playground.
I’ve always had more fun with photography by keeping it organic. Let things happen in front of you and you can capture things that are unique and different as opposed to something that feels staged and orchestrated. Why should shooting portraits be made to feel like your trying to make a family look happy. If you can get the right kind of interaction you will just naturally bring out that happiness by just letting them be themselves. To them mother it can be frustrating to handle a hyperactive child but it is still plain to see the love and care she has for her daughter.
There is nothing wrong with trying to get the perfect image but sometimes if you try to force it you’ll never get that image. If you show some patience and look for the right moment the perfect image will come to you. That being said you should also still go out and shoot. If you constantly sit there and wait for it to happen you’ll miss out on opportunity elsewhere. Sometimes you won’t even know you’ve captured a moment till after you got it. Sometimes you just need to dive in but you don’t have to do it with guns blazing.
Almost a year ago I got myself a Nikon D5100. I had originally gotten the camera for video purposes so that I could film better quality YouTube videos but through associations and professional opportunities I learned to use it as a proper camera and learned the ins and outs of the camera settings, Manual operations and the rules to follow (and break) in photography in the Year that I had the camera I also invested in full frame, Wide aperture lenses and other pieces of equipment thinking that they will be good now and great when I choose to upgrade. Well I’ve officially upgraded and gotten myself a refurbished D600, full frame DSLR.
The day before the new camera was delivered I decided that I was going to send it off with shooting a random set with my close friend Yasamin.
Yasmine does not have any real modeling experience to speak of and as such is a very shy person when the camera pointed at her. That being said she is one of the more energetic people I’ve ever worked and this was an excellent opportunity to work on my directing skills which is one of my weakest tools in my photography utility belt.
Being that she is such a high wired individual I had to approach this as not so much as telling her what to do but more along the lines of how I wanted her to behave. When I’m shooting portraiture I don’t like to spend and extensive amount of time positioning the subject into exactly where I want them to be. Instead I like to have them just flow freely and position themselves while I look for the best spot and the best moment to get the shot I want. Does it work every time: No but it’s more enjoyable way to shoot in my mind. This method has been great when I’ve worked with models who have been doing this line of work for quite a long time and know how to control their body language and expressions well in front of the camera. However this method isn’t nearly as effective when working with a more inexperienced model and proved to be a challenge. However after some trial and error I started to get the best out of the subject by just harnessing her personality.
This shoot proved to be a very fun way to send off a camera that has served me well over the last year and we’re both ready to move on to bigger and better things. Although it can be a smart idea to keep your older bodies as back ups I’m selling my D5100 to a friend of mine who actually owns and operates a local magazine out here in the land of enchantment and has some big plans for the camera. Me on the other hand will begin adjusting to shooting on a full frame camera where my focal lengths are going to start looking quite a bit wider and the noise in the photos are going to be a lot less noticeable. I’ve enjoyed growing as a photographer over this last year and I’m looking forward to what this next year brings me and my new camera.
TCK-Media 
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