I had a great time getting to know Summer and photographing her as she modeled for me. I was demonstrating lighting and client interaction while teaching a weeklong photographic workshop at the big once-a-year event, Texas School. She is a beautiful girl and a lot of fun to hang out with, and as you can see, we got a lot of beautiful images in a short amount of time.
I start with teaching a primary focus on perfect exposures, perfect color balance, and exquisite lighting that sculpts and flatters the model. From there as a photographer we must interact and connect with the model in order to get real and wonderful expressions instead of the typical fake smiles that are all too common.
And as you can see from this shoot, Summer’s personality made all of this easy. We had a great time and created a lot of beautiful images with genuine and captivating expressions, despite our actual shooting time being very short. Because I’m training and getting other photographers to shoot and practice these concepts, it means I only step in and photograph models like Summer in small chucks of 5 minute intervals here and there. But even with small 5 minute intervals, you can see that we’ve got a lot of beautiful images of her. Here are some of my favorite images.
Starting on a fashion gray background to go along with her black outfit, and as if she was a high school senior in my studio, I shot quickly for variety of styles, expression, and poses. You can see that we have smiles, but also thoughtful and serious images. We have close ups, mid-length, and full-length. We have a lot of variety in a lot of ways, and all of these are very beautiful of her. These would make a wonderful album or even a great series of images in a wall collage.
To demonstrate location lighting, I took her to the end of the hotel’s bar in her beautiful gown, and balanced auxiliary lighting with the bar lights to create a warm mood.
Later in a new outfit, I created these portraits of her on my deep blue background, again shooting for variety. And again, all looking beautiful.
And before sending her home, we ended the shoot with a quick selfie together.
And a few days later I had a night demo and again was able to photograph Summer. That demo was 30 minutes long, and with talking, setting a groundwork of what I’d be doing, and showing how to light with minimal equipment anywhere, we only shot for a few minutes. But even still, we got some beautiful images. And here is one of my favorites from that quick shoot.
This was a really fun shoot and I’m grateful for Summer coming and modeling for me. She was a joy to be around and I’m excited by the images we created.
If you’re a photographer looking for more training like this, check out all my online courses right here on my training site, or in-person at a city near you.
And until next time, America.