Amber editorial portraits and some fashion shots Hudson Valley Photographer
Amber came in wanting to do some more fashion style shots. She had always wanted to be a model, and wanted to make a real run at it. I knew when she came in she had a gorgeous face, and I was excited to get some great shots. She also had a ton of personality, so I knew we would get some shots with some character in them.
We started out in the back and got some natural light shots. I haven’t had a chance to edit any of those ones yet. After that we moved on to do a bunch of studio looks. I’m excited to see how those ones turn out as well after a bit of editing, but in the mean time I really wanted to work up this one shot.
I sure ha
ve been enjoying the new studio space. It’s so big, and there’s a ton of natural light that I can work with in the back. I love the ability to shoot with barn door light. Where I open up my back loading dock, and shoot the natural light that falls into that area. It’s a great simple backdrop with just absolutely gorgeous light. At my old studio space I didn’t even have windows and that always killed me a little inside. On the inside of the space it’s big enough for 4 photographers to be shooting at the same time. Which is crazy. In theory I could shoot a 200mm lens full length in the space. Yes it’s that big.
Which speaking of which I’ve really been wanting to get the nikon 135mm lens. I feel like it would be a great addition to my arsenal. I already have the 85mm 1.4, which is my goto lens. And believe me I shoot a ton on that, but I feel like it would be nice to have another lens that would give me a bit of a closer crop. It would be great to shoot some beauty work with it. As much as I hate doing beauty retouching, I think I could do some great portraits with it. (This is me laughing at myself, because it’s not like I don’t have enough portraits in my portfolio already).
That’s another thing I’ve been thinking about with my work lately. I really want my photography/portfolio to have more variety to it. I love all the editorial work that I’ve done over the years, but the click through rate on my editorials is really low. I think people just don’t even see them. I think that’s something I’m jealous of with Lynzi’s work. It’s all editorial, and it shows a ton of diversity. I’ve been debating a lot lately if I want to change the way my website / portfolio is laid out. I’ve been thinking a lot about putting my editorials as the home page to my site, so I can show perspective clients that I can shoot major editorials with the diversity that they are looking for. I would also like to show that I could shoot a killer lookbook. Something I wish I was booked more often for. It doesn’t seem like I have enough time to shoot them these days, but soon I’ll be able to shoot whatever I want.
I have some diversity in my portfolios, but I want more. I want better framing, more dynamic shots, and more emotion. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately looking through my old inspiration photographers. People who I had looked up to. People who used to inspire me. People who I used to think their work was amazing, and I had no idea how they did the retouching that they did, or the style that they shot. I feel like the longer I shoot the more I find my own personal voice, and the less I find inspiration from others. That’s not to say that I don’t still love putting together a good mood board, but these days it feels like my mood boards are shooting for the moon, and that drives me to work even more on my photography.
