This past Sunday I had the opportunity to have the best shoot I have had as of yet. It seems like I say that after almost every session, but truth be told I am so excited to share images from this past Sunday. Before I do, however, I would like to talk a little bit about what made this shoot so amazing.
First : Location. I had a relative tell me once “Location, location, location…. That’s what it’s all about right?” In a way, YES! Location is so important, by now you should know there is nothing that irritates me more than photographers who use the EXACT SAME LOCATION over and over again. It drives me banana sandwich! The world is way too big and too beautiful to not at least go one road further or just a couple of blocks down. In this particular case we hiked up Keown Falls, yes that’s right HIKED! Along the way there was a tree completely blocking our path. I may or may not have twisted an ankle coming down. Now obviously I do not go to such extremes for every session but for my vision on this we just HAD to go there and as you will soon see, it was SOOOO worth it!
Second : LIGHTING! Lighting can make or break a photoshoot. You can use natural light all you want, but I guarantee you if I did not have my off camera flash these images would in no way be as amazing as they are. Yes it was a bit of a pain hiking up about a mile with that thing (this is where the muscle of my company AKA my husband come in) but again SO SO SO worth it!
Third : WARDROBE! Ok so my clients all know that they show up to a photoshoot with several outfit selections knowing that I will pick out what they are to wear… WHY? Because I know where we are going and what will look best. If there is an article of clothing that will not look good YOU WILL NOT BE WEARING IT. It’s not that the clothing doesn’t look good, it’s that that article of clothing will not look good where we are going. My job as your photographer is to have a vision, and give you images that are the best version of yourself which include your clothing. In this shoot I brought the clothing.
Again I had a vision and I could not order it, or buy it, I had to make it! I don’t normally have the time for this and would so much rather buy it. But in this circumstance her hair would only look good with certain colors. So I grabbed my old wedding dress crinoline, and tried dying it. Wellllll it turned this weird color purple, that obviously wasn’t going to work so I spray painted it! Who knew..…. right! I found flowers at hobby lobby that matched the turquoise and the little bit of purple that peeked through and made a headpiece. TA-DA gloriousness was born. If you are a client of mine do not be afraid to do things like this! There is no such thing as right or wrong, just make sure you check with me about your ideas before you dye something HA HA!
Lastly : Makeup, hair, posing. All of these do add to a photoshoot. I was fortunate in this case as she IS a hairstylist and is obviously quite knowledgeable with makeup as well! Which can I go ahead and add LOOK AT THE RED HAIR… Gosh. It is gorgeous! As far as posing is concerned, she knew how to hold her body. I have written blogs on posing and will continue to do so. I understand it can be very awkward and weird when you’re in front of the camera but I promise a little bit of practice can go a very long way. You may feel a little weird at first but LOOK if your images look like these in the end it’s completely worth dealing with.
Well here we go everyone! Enjoy Makayla’s Images!
