It was a free saturday and I woke up at 3:30am!! What’s wrong with me?
Oh and I hosted a photography workshop the night before and had people over afterwards until midnight.
But it’s all worth it.
I went to pick up the model in SLC and then we drove down to near delta to the Little Sahara Sand Dunes.
It wasn’t terribly cold but the wind chill did make things interesting.
We didn’t have a lot of time to think, we were on a tight schedule to get the model back in time for work at 10am.
Meaning we shot for just over an hour.
And yes we got her back in time.
Ingrid is from Brazil and is amazingly beautiful and a lot of fun to work with.
The fact she got up at 4am to go shoot 2 hours away for a short period of time in 35-40 degree weather and not have a coat on… that should tell you something!
There are about 300 more pictures I might post sooner or later. But for now this will have to suffice
The fates aligned and the photo angels have blessed us with the coolest thing ever.
At the Photowalking Utah event today. See their website. (Organized in part by Rich Legg)
There were a bunch of lighting setups (at least 10)
I wandered around with one extra. My ring light on my sb-900 flash.
I set it to manual and figured out good manual settings and let everyone use it even the canon shooters were shooting with the nikon flash on manual.
Enter 8mm
At the end of the event a friend (Jeremy B.)
Lent me his 8mm fisheye… I’m thinking what in the world would I do with this lens… I wanna play with my flash.
Oh well… maybe I’ll just keep it on. (Read later for more of what I was thinking)
Well getting to the point… This is what happens.
A couple of inches away from their face. Short enough lens that it actually sees the ring flash.
“Jarvie Window”
Consider it shamelessly branded. haha
Really. I’m not opposed to calling it something else, but I do want it to be called something. And that something should be cool and memorable.
Before I posted the pictures (full gallery)
I asked what we should call it, so I could title the post and what not.
Only a few people spoke up but they came up with “Jarvie Window”
I figured it would be fun and catchy.
I assume others will continue to do this because it really is quite simple and very fun.
Now this being said… I like my last name and I’m not shy.
But it’s not like it’s a typical thing. And the literal “Through the Ring Flash fisheye” isn’t too catchy
Yes you will see me doing this again… often
Yes it’s very gimmicky and doesn’t replace being able to take good pictures otherwise.
But you better believe that I’m going to be doing this a lot.
A whole series of faces in square format, doing crazy stuff.
Up in the face… no personal space allowed.
I can totally see this as the hit of a party or wedding reception.
There’s something me and Bryan Jones just couldn’t put a finger on… something about it that makes it so endearing.
It has to do with shooting through the circle.
Yes the lighting is cool.
Yes it’s often more of a caricature Than a picture
I’m just someone somewhere has stumbled across it in a similar fashion… but they sure didn’t share it much, because it didn’t catch on.
More technical?
Put the flash on the lowest setting… i was doing 1/128th
Use a super wide that is short enough that it won’t actually go through the ring flash.
Use a ring flash like this Ray Flash
Put the aperture up at around f/8
Be careful to focus on the eyes really well.
And then just get CLOSE.
And be creative.
Camera+Flash+RayFlash+8mm lens+Characters
This is the man! (Above)
He said “Hey Scott try out this lens”
And I thought I could be sensible and take off the ring flash.
Or I could be half lazy and half non-sensible and one more half inquisitive.
Haha you thought it was going to be the city. Tricked you.
They call him Boston.
He asked for some pictures and I saw that I did his shoot just a month or two before I started using smugmug… so I went back through his pictures and uploaded them to SmugMug.
I also re-edited his pictures some because I’ve certainly improved a bit in the last two years.
It is a good exercise for me and the student-interns to go over some older less essential pictures and play around on them.
Shall I Re-Edit your pictures too?
So I guess the offer is open to other people… if I took your pictures a while back and you’d like to see them re-edited let me know.
I’ll bump you up higher on the priority list if you’re interested in Buying prints of them as well… or at least if you’ll show them off to everyone, yeah but probably more so if you want to buy a couple prints
Dustin wanted some pictures while we were traveling around in Hawaii.
One evening after sunset (twilight) I decided I could take a break and do some.
I laid the flash on a few rocks pointed it in a direction and told him to stand in front of it.
I walked around him shooting pictures and doing some different poses.
After a while I realized I didn’t have move at all… he stood in the same spot the whole time and I just moved around and adjusted my settings.
In fact the flash stayed in the same spot on the same settings the whole time.
I did have him jump in that spot so at the end he did move a little.
Just goes to show what you can do.
Here are some examples
To change it up I shot through things.
Shooting away from the sunset/twilight made things much darker background obviously.
I believe in stretching yourself to such a limit that all the rest of the time everything’s a cake walk.
See how far you can go. I found out I can do 48 shoots in one week.
All fine until I’ve almost went crazy sorting them all then editing 3000 pictures in the last 3-4 days.
This is a long and yet very fun post… like 48 mini-posts all wrapped up into one.
The last day of the charity shoot went very well.
I was pushing myself to take new and unique pictures in a location I had done 10 shoots in 2 days previous.
I did a few more family shoots which isn’t something I specialize in… but I’m learning to like it, and at the same time conform them to what I do like, which is the Family Lifestyle Photography format.
And of course I totally enjoyed getting the aspiring models to come take pictures. (As seen above)
Thanks to dad for coming up with this laugh! As the photographer you don’t know what will get the kids to errupt in laughter… or tears for that matter.
The whole family was crazy photogenic and that helped. Look at these two models!
No need to put a lot of effort into posing these kids up… they’ll do their thing and I hope to get them as they Are, and make them good pictures while i’m at it.
Nice big landscapes don’t mean the group has to be tiny, but sometimes a bit smaller in the frame can help show off why we drove all that way and make it not only a portrait, but a work of art.
Day 4 of the charity shoot had me in the Studio for only one shoot and outside for 11.
It’s a really amazing experience to take 11 shoots in the same location. seeing 4 hours of changing lighting affect one area.
I was doing really short shoots so I couldn’t go far so that incoming groups could find me. Therefore I didn’t wander around as much as I usually do.
It really stretches the photographic ability to keep shooting in the changing lighting situations and keep shooting in a small radius and keep things fresh and now just go with what you did on the last one.
Of course I focused on the highlights of the area such as the mountain backdrop and the sections of trees that were still changing color.
The Location
This location is awesome because the mountains start blocking the sun about 3 hours before sunset (on average) which means it was perfect lighting starting around 4pm
The above picture was about half way through the shoot and already the mountain was providing a great backdrop with only a little bit of light compensation on the subject.
(More examples when fully edited)
Below is the last shoot of the night when it was pretty dark and sun had already been set for a bit… we were working on twilight light by then with a bunch of external lighting.
STUDIO
But I did start experimenting even more with how to make studio interesting and new.
Since I’m not a studio photog and have never even read a book or watched a blog on studio setups I was just winging it.
I guess that’s how I did my whole photo existence just coming up with random ideas.
But I must admit I’ve heard of the idea of lighting the backgrounds and even seen a good friend David Terry setting up a studio setup at Suzanne’s house shooting through something colorful to get some background color.
So I had these filter strips perfect for my SB-900’s which I got from Pictureline for pennies (well worth a stop at the Draper pictureline to grab, even if you never use them… like me up until this point, at least you bought a photo thing for a couple dollars when everything else is too expensive)
So anyway I’m playing around and having people pick random pictures and shooting the backgrounds. I’ll continue to experiment of course.
The Seasoned Charity Shoot PRO
Ashley is the only one to have been to all 3 of my charity shoots… at the first one I didn’t even know her.
She’s a way awesome model when she’s sure of herself and not worried she’s acting to vain in front of Angie who acts it up even more than Ashley.
So having been to all 3 Charity shoot either she’s super duper smart and/or cheap… haha.
But in any case it has always been a fun shoot with Ashley and Angie around!
I was excited to do this shoot because I was offered to do baby shoots a while back but never could get the time or whatever, and I was happy to be doing pictures for a good friend, and even though this little girl is now a bit older I’m glad we could at least get some.
Model Photographers
Many might think Angela looks familiar and that’s because she’s featured in several parts on my blog ever since I did her wedding in California.
We refer to her as the “Beach Bride”
But angela is also a photographer and so is Liz the girl in the blue, and for that matter so is adrienne and Monica who came for shoots as well.
In fact yesterday 2 of my interns came with their families to get pictures taken. (We missed you Heidi and family)
In fact many people that took advantage of the charity shoot were photogs.
I think it’s an amazing learning experience for a photographer to have pictures taken of themselves, I think it helps to be in the shoes of the future clients.
Now you know the feedback you should be giving when you’re the photographer.
You can tell Liz and Angela know what a good expression looks like and are able to capture it in the pictures.
I’ve always enjoyed shooting angela because she’s so creative and I think that will make her a great photographer one day.
And Liz was a joy to take pictures of because she had so many looks and was so fun to be around. The Camera loves you all… (as the saying goes)
Senior portraits are probably the most desired gigs for photographers.
The subjects are easy to deal with, they’re usually good looking.
They’re characters anyway so you don’t have to bring something dead to life.
It’s like model photography without the scandal or the big egos or all the focus on Money and materialism
They’re usually into something like sports or dance or whatever so you can work with that.
They like fashionable things so we can be a bit more creative or edgy.
You know they’ll show off their pictures to all their friends anyway… so why not.
They’re no where near the stress of a wedding or other event shoot.
They usually look great to put online.
They’re often done in cool places. More flexible in choosing than almost any other type of photography.
They’re still paid very well. (The range can be dramatic… for a good photographer it can still be really high, but you can still find a friend just getting into photography who’ll do it for almost nothing.)
Remember back in the day when I talked about how individual portrait shoots or modeling shoots are pretty easy.
Well I don’t get to do them often with all the other shoots going on and since I’m known mainly as a wedding photographer.
Well Jenny convinced me that I should take time and at least do her’s.
She did a good job because in a week where I had 8+ photo shoots I fit her in for a nice long shoot with 3 outfit changes from direct sun to shady to dusk and even night with lots of off camera flash stuff.
Jenny is working on a fitness show and I wish her all the luck in the world with that.
Tell her how beautiful she is and perhaps even how Amazing My work is. haha
BTW, I stand by what I said this kind of individual portraits is so much easier than weddings or shoots like that, but there’s something about weddings that make them worthwhile… oh yeah and they also pay better.
That being said I’d take nice paid portrait/model shoots any day if anyone is looking.
I mean well I suppose you can pose it.
But sometimes life is just even more exciting.
Sometimes your Dad’s Sister’s Daughter’s Husband just happens to be at another cousin’s daughter’s birthday party on a sunday afternoon and driving back home on a Harley and deciding it’s a little cold so he’ll put on his mask.
Seriously not one bit my idea… all his!
One small problem to overcome
And my memory cards are ALL full!!
So I quickly delete one and have exactly ONE shot to get it down.
And that folks is the story!!
Life happens and it pays to be there and be ready!!
Me showing off my awesome family.
My talented brother his beautiful wife and their 4 wonderful kids.
Since I was the youngest it was almost as if I grew up being the older brother to the two oldest kids.
Now one of them (reminginton) is on his way to Florida.
I’ve never had the opportunity before to take typical MTC pictures… I guess this wasn’t all too typical. Then again I’m not too sure because I haven’t actually seen many.
Now my thoughts on Model or Senior portrait only photographers.
Cheating?
Last time I think I used the word “Cheating” for studio types
I think i’ll use it again… haha
But this time it’s the cheating that I really really like.
It’s all said in good fun… or is it Mwahaha
More people More harder
I think we can all admit that the more people you add to a photoshoot typically the harder it gets.
So that being said… shooting one individual is the easiest number.
When they’re the Model types it gets even easier.
I suppose it becomes more about your skills in setting up shots and being creative, than it is about how to interact with the people. (Obviously those elements are still there to a degree)
Case in point: Angela
I did her wedding last year in California.
You may remember her beach bridals
She’s getting into photography so we did a little trip looking for places, training on photography and taking pictures. Full Gallery
Another case
Even more fulfilling was taking pictures for Nichole.
She wasn’t very into it and you’d think she’d be since she’s an actress.
Heck she has the lead role in a play right now.
But she was a bit shy and didn’t quite know what to do.
I kinda had to coerce her into even doing the shoot.
Very different from Angela… and yet the pictures of Nichole were great. They captured her very well.
Who she was and so forth. I’m very happy with it. Full Gallery
Thanks for the fun days to both of you! Enjoy your pictures and show them off!
The point?
So the point of this all is to say:
Dang!!! Individual portrait sessions are so much easier, specially when they are the fun types, the outgoing and the posers… I’m not hating on Portrait only photographers… I would do it ALL the time if there were a better market for it all.
Supply and Demand
And there probably is a decent market. But see the thing is every person photography wants to do it, but not everyone wants to do weddings.
The need for individual shoots isn’t very high and the price is pretty low.
It’s understandable… it’s supply and demand.
Meaning not as much demand and yet the supply is huge.
Sure we can focus on it until our quality leads to higher prices.
But i guess I just am too lazy… either that or I do love weddings. The concept and the challenge.
There are difficulties
There are some things that make individual portraits hard.
For instance if they aren’t good at posing they have no one there to interact with to make them more comfortable. So it’s more sink or swim. Hit or miss.
I can usually tell a couple to interact with eachother… when it’s one person… I can’t do that can I?
Not everyone should nor can do poses like these
In the end
I’m more or less saying I would LOVE to do more of these types of shoots.
So come on down good looking people wanting pictures.
Where are you at? Don’t you just want some fun pictures to put on your blog or facebook?
Get some good pictures for those dating sites… invest in your future, invest in yourself. haha
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