Here are a few shots i did for a makeup creative a few weeks ago. These aren't the final images to be used however before the makeup artist decided on the keepers I had spent some time practicing on a few. I enjoy this kind of work, it still has a long ways to go to come off as less muddled and overall cleaner, maybe not in terms of beauty retouching but the heavy handedness of it all. There's a lot of subtle changes that over the course of an image add up to something much cleaner. The more time i spend on these sorts of images the more i come to the realization that less is more.
It's difficult to find that balance as it tends to be a fine line between too little and too much. At this point it's practice practice practice when it comes to retouching. Vision on the other hand is a demon all of its own that needs a lot of attention.
There will be more to come in the near future. To me this is a bit of a personal ambition. The shots may be simple but there is a lot of complexity to them behind the scenes.
Finally took a bit of a step away from the standard studio shoot to play with a few different elements I've been meaning to explore recently. It's tough some days to get away from it, especially on days like today where the weather is less than accommodating for outside shoots.
Needless to say, focus can be over rated at times.
A quick series of shots I did for a local friend for one of the custom cakes she had made for a customer. I got a chance to grab a few shots and sample some left over "material" in the process.
Needless to say, it was as delicious as it looked!
For those interested you can find more of Lily's fantastic work on her Facebook page:
Custom Creations Cakes & Pastries
Some friends and I took a trip to Jasper over the long weekend. While there we did a trek up Maligne Canyon. For me this was something new. I had visited the canyon in the summer when I was much younger. Even then it was a rather unique and interesting place. Visiting it during the winter and getting a chance to hike up the actual river is a different experience all together though and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't been before.
These shots were done hand held with the 14-24mm f2.8. I had originally planned to bring my tripod but forgot it in the car.
There has been a bit of a change of perspective as of late for me and my overall approach when photographing people in general. There is always a time and place for the standard approach of posing people in very archaic ways. I don't want to frame it in a negative light, there is an application to it. The problem crops up however when you try and use this method on situations where you strive for emotion or natural reaction.
A certain air has to exist. The subject has to be in a comfortable frame of mind and there's a sort of energy that bounces back between the model and photographer. This is not something easily established when the photographer has to guide the subject to very specific posing. The flow ceases to exist and the overall feeling becomes rigid, something that shows in the final product.
When you try and create a story within your shots they have to be filled with movement. There has to be a sort of freedom for the subject to play within.
With that I mind I'm beginning to try and shift my overall approach to create scenes or stories. Give the subject a feeling, a simple story or just an overall scene and create the comfort and will for them to be themselves, to act and react to the flow of things rather than be guided. I want to guide them initially, before the camera is even in my hand. Once that is established it then becomes my job to capture that as an observer, regardless of whether the technicals of photography are aligned in my favor or not. A photograph with emotion will always win out over technical virtuosity for me.
Now, this of course takes a certain level of comfort within both the subject as well as the photographer. Initially as a photographer you have to be able to create that within the person you're working with and that brings to the forefront a lot of refinement on people skills and interaction. It means developing vision and developing stories and tales. It brings together a lot of different elements from outside of photography in general and focuses a lot more on personal character development.
It's however something that will push so many other aspects of ones own photography. It translates to practically any sub genre within photography. Regardless of what you shoot, it is ultimately about people.
Some of the shots from the spa themed shoot we did last month. As I somewhat talked about in an earlier post the goal of this shoot was mainly for the sake of learning and experimenting with a few new ideas and looks. We ended up getting some great images in the process and got the chance to put together a bigger project. Jumping out of your comfort zone for those sorts of situation builds you up a little at a time. Each time you revisit such bigger projects you become more familiar with the flow of them. Planning and managing them becomes a less stressful process. Suddenly they don't seem like all that much work.
