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It’s been a while since I’ve written here. I feel like the whole site needs a bit of a facelift. I often find myself writing to work through something. I decided to write today instead of Monday or Tuesday when I was feeling extremely down.
I’m a member of a photography association. They put on workshops, events and meetups. I love this. I liked my college for upgrading classes, but the program is going to be cancelled soon, so it’s nice to have this group to continue learning and meet other photographers and assistants.
So… Monday… I was so excited for Monday. It was the peer portfolio review. There were some really big names coming to the event. One name I really hoped I’d get. I made a new book back in February in order to graduate my photography program. My coordinator loved my book. He gave some suggestions, like a different cover and to leave some blank space and make the photos different sizes. So, I rushed to do all this before the portfolio review. I ended up adding 2 more photos.
I arrived at the event, my name was called, but I didn’t get the photographer I had hoped for. My book was not well received. I felt a bit down, but then just thought, I’m not this photographer’s style. We took a break, then it was time to switch. Fingers crossed I got the photographer I wanted. No luck. So, I went with a positive attitude and thought, this group will love my book. They did not. So, finally, feeling completely defeated, I pulled up my website and showed my feature page with my portraits. Everyone loved them. “Why didn’t you make this your portfolio?” “Well, it is my portfolio, anyone can look it up and see it and my technical ability.” In my head I’m screaming, Anyone can do this! I want to be different! I want to make pictures no on else can make! I want to be remember for my art!
I couldn’t sleep Monday night. I was so down on Tuesday, I wanted to quit. Today I know I can’t quit. This is who I am. If I’m not shooting, my stomach hurts, I’m anxious, it’s not a good feeling. I take a picture, I’m calm, all is right with the world. I make a multiple exposure that I love and fireworks. I feel so proud. I know no one in the whole world will have made the exact same, or close to the same photo as me. The goal is always to grow and get better at it and of course picture taking and lighting in general. That’s the great thing about photography. You will never stop learning and getting better.
By the way, that photo is what I used for my book cover. Was it the wrong choice? I still don’t think it was. But, I could be wrong.
I know what you’re thinking, what’s with the photo? This has nothing to do with fashion. I’ll explain. I’m still explaining it to myself even. The past three months have been really amazing. I’m back in school, actually at school and working in studio. I’ve been lucky enough to find models to take to school with me during our free shooting sessions on Sundays to practice lighting and help with my ideas for my fashion portfolio.
One of the classes I took was sports photography. It was never a class I thought I’d take because I don’t have any interest in sports photography but I thought I’d learn a lot about lighting. Our first assignment was very technical, we were to photograph a water droplet. I must have practiced 7 days in a row before figuring out how to freeze the water droplet. It was very fun.
We were then ready to move on to people. We shot dancers. Freezing motion and showing motion using shutter drag. I was very happy with this shoot and thought I had taken the best photos of my life. As the course went on, I did shoots I never thought I’d be interested in or enjoy. We shot soccer in the rain, skateboarding and mountain biking. By my last class, I started thinking maybe I’m meant be be a sports photographer. I absolutely loved every shoot and tried to be as creative as possible in our limited time (classes are only 3 hours long). I’ve never learned so much and have had such an interest in something as strongly as this. Don’t get me wrong I still love fashion and I still want to do my final project as planned which is a fashion portfolio with a wacky twist. But living in Vancouver during a pandemic, it’ll be extremely challenging to find work as a fashion photographer. But sports are everywhere. I could do sports mainly and fashion editorials on the side.
I’m still in shock over it all. But I’m starting to believe sports photography may just be my calling. I’ll be asking everyone I know that are into sports and have a sports team if I can practice my photography with them. I’ve asked my gym and sent them a proposal. I’m hoping to get some kickboxing shots.
I’ll be doing another soccer shoot on Sunday. I can’t wait. The first soccer shoot I did we were to tell a story. I drew a complete blank and just started shooting hoping something would come to me. I ended up doing a story on the soccer ball. It was pretty weak. My classmates had way better stories. I had amazing shots, but my story needed help. I’m going to do another story and hopefully do a better job.
I’ll be the best Sports Fashion Photography I can be 🙂
After my last blog (What to do with Photos that Don’t Make the Cut) I’ve been hooked on finding old portraits and adding textures to them. Here are some of my favorites. And yes, one of them is me, can you guess which one?
It was the first one. I ran out of old portraits so I started photographing myself. The one I took of myself was actually a double exposure and then I added a texture.
Because I was loving what I was doing so much, I started thinking, maybe I could go down to English Bay or to Robson Street in front of the art gallery with a popup portrait art studio. I wonder if people would want an abstract portrait? I was so excited by the idea, I bought two portable, collapsible backdrops, printed off some of my pictures, got some cheap frames from the dollar store and went in front of my apartment building offering free portrait art. I had a questionnaire typed up asking if my models would pay for such a service and how much would they pay for it etc. I had a small contract typed up saying I owned the copyright and I may use their photograph for self promotion etc. I didn’t have a super long contract like if I were doing a job since I was offering free portraits and I wasn’t paying anyone. I’m actually not sure at all if I did the right thing, but figure if I were to do this for money I would have a lawyer look over my contract and make it as short as possible so I don’t take up too much of people’s time.
Here is a short clip of my set up:
It was quite nerve racking asking passersby if I could take their photograph. My street is busy, but there’s quite a few markets around so I didn’t want to disturb anyone with groceries. But people were curious by my display and I did photograph 7 people in about an hour. I can’t tell you how much I learned in that one hour. For instance, my posing needs a lot of work. I didn’t want to take more than 5 minutes of people’s time, so it’s not like I had hours to try new things and take my time thinking of poses. I need to come up with 5- 10 “go to” poses. I had a lot of tall people. I should have had a stool for them to sit on or I should have had a step stool. My back drop wasn’t very big and I didn’t have a lot of space. I also didn’t have anyone fill out my questionnaire. I felt bad for keeping people. I also think that my backdrop was too dark, so I’m hoping my white backdrop will work better. I also kinda felt like no one would pay for such a service. Then I got to editing. All my shots were the same, waist up shots. My back drop came to the ground so I wouldn’t have been able to do full length shots. I think a lot of my textures work well with full length portraits. That way if there’s a bit of texture on someone’s face, it’s not in your face. I got to say. I’m not in love with my pictures. They’re just ok. I’m actually quite disgusted in myself for my terrible posing. I guess I was just nervous and starting thinking maybe this is a stupid idea.
I actually gave up after doing 4 of my model’s textures. My neighbors brought out their newborn. I couldn’t for the life of me find a texture for that little baby. I tried to move on, but nothing seemed to work. So I took a week long break. I don’t even think I took a picture all week. I guess I needed to re-evaluate. I want to be a fashion photographer. I want to be unique. I know, says everyone, right? I really want to bring my abstract photography into my fashion photography. So, maybe street portraits are not the answer to my dreams. BUT…a popup studio will teach me so much. I will learn to be an excellent poser, I will learn to be comfortable with everyone and make them feel comfortable. I think I will continue with the popup studio for the summer and offer free portraits so that I can become a better photographer, a confident photographer and a better person all around.
I’m calling this my first step in becoming a fashion photographer because I know I’m going to do a lot of things that don’t make sense, I’m going to have a lot of bad ideas, fail a lot, well I hope I fail a lot so I can keep learning. I feel like this first idea of mine will lead to something better. I will have a better idea for my fashion photography, it may help me land a job as a photography assistant somehow, maybe it will guide me to creating the best portfolio I can do for graduation. I don’t know. That’s the thing, and why I’m blogging about how I will get to where I want to be. What were my steps. And it’s easier to write about it as it’s happening than remembering. Maybe my texture idea is just a dead end and I’m writing about it for nothing. But, just in case it is something, here it is. And at least it’s been fun.
Ok, so you want to see my shots from the Popup Studio?
As you know, I have been saving up for equipment and for models for my fashion portfolio for when covid is over. I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. So, I took $1000 of my savings and bought 3 light stands, 2 speedlights and a softbox and a few other little things. I also want a collapsible beauty dish, but they didn’t have one. At the very least I can practice at home or maybe have some friends pose for me outside.
My husband was excited for me and said are you going to test out your new equipment? I said are you going to pose for me? He agreed. I had an idea in my head for a fashion shoot where a woman is getting ready in the bathroom then trips and falls into the shower curtains, gets tangled in the shower curtains and smears lipstick on her face. But, my husband wouldn’t agree to the lipstick. I thought for a minute then, it came to me, secret eating in the bathroom. I had ice cream in the freezer and so began the secret eating series. My daughter loved it so much (because secret eating is a running joke in our family) and wanted to get in on one of the shots. So we did secret eating cupcakes in the bathtub, thus the strange featured blog image. They were both great actors and this is the best shot of the whole series. Would you like to see the other shots? The last one wasn’t the greatest of “hiding the pizza in the sink and pretending to eat fruit”. My husband wasn’t in love with the idea and it kinda shows. I need to make up for that one. And I threw in a black and white test shot because it makes a nice portrait.
Before I bought my equipment, I bought a piece of white cardboard from the dollar store and put it on an easel and bounced my flash onto it and into my subject to create a softbox lighting feel. It works really well and looks just like a softbox in my eyes. But it sure takes time to figure out how to angle the flash to bounce the light just right. For self portraits or for my family portraits, I needed to put my camera on a tripod, put the timer on, run and hope we look good. I now have a remote trigger that also has a timer, so no more running back and forth. My photos are much improved. Here’s what I did bouncing lights. This idea came to me as I was starving. It killed me not being able to eat my giant bowl of food, but once that idea comes, there’s no turning back. Anyway, doesn’t the lighting look good? And all it cost me was $1 for the white card.
Now that I have a 3 light set up, I need to figure out how to use it. I read the instructions, but I can’t seem to get it to work. Langara has a course that’s called small strobe big light, but it got cancelled this summer. I have taken it before, but it was 7 years ago. A refresher would be nice. But I’m sure YouTube can work as well. I’ll reread Light Science and Magic for a third time, and come up with some great 3 light set ups to shoot. Hmmm who to use? Me, my daughter or my husband hahahaha. For now, I’ll show you some double exposures with a one light set up that I did on myself. Man that was really difficult. I tried so many things and I’m not the most photogenic person in the world. How creepy do some of these look? I’ve added a couple with textures as well, just for fun. My favorite will be in my next blog post.
I’m no Photoshop expert. I’ve taken some classes a long time ago, I made a pretty cool composite, but then slowly forgot most of what I learned. I use photoshop mainly for color or manipulating color, exposure, contrast or if I need to clone something simple out or quickly touch up pimples.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about photographers that have slightly blurred images then merge them with a texture or perhaps a photo of a canvas to make them look like a painting. If you’ve seen my abstracts, you’ll know that try to mimic that painterly look straight out of the camera using motion and/or blur.
I originally thought about shooting a blank canvas, then I thought perhaps it needed to be painted and that freaked me out a bit, because I know nothing about painting. I remembered a picture of a rusty garage door I shot the day before. I’m not sure why I shot that, it’s very boring on it’s own. It was in shade so there was no cool lighting effect. I thought, why not start with that. I had some photos I shot in studio just before covid. I had a million ideas that day and none of them were working. The whole day was a bust. I took the photo next to me with the blurred crystal in front (I mean, it was ugly, what was I thinking? But I am a true believer in making mistakes to find out what works and what doesn’t. In the end this ugly photo worked) and merged it with the rotated garage door. I played around with the blending modes and opacity, then I tried black and white, then settled on a black and white model and color garage door. I couldn’t believe how easy this was. I tried another with the garage door. It needed more, so I added another photo to part of the image. I tried another with the garage door all with different blending modes and model images.
My obsession began. It was all I could think about the next day. I tried another photo with an image of bags of bricks that I shot in Sri Lanka. I decided I didn’t want to spend time looking through all my photos for textures. So I left with my camera. In one block and probably 10 minutes, I shot 70 textures. I rushed home to my computer. and got to work.
My back is really hurting by this point and I need an outfit change at least! I promised the following day, I’ll change up the outfit. Can you believe how great these photos look? I should probably show you a before and after because I’m sure you don’t believe how ugly and boring these portraits were before the textures were added. I mean what was I thinking with that big white box, the rubber gloves, the pearls, the poses? I honestly never thought these photos would see the light of day.
I was having so much fun. It was like darkroom days again. I used to live in the darkroom. I had a darkroom in my bathroom at one point in my life. The experimenting and seeing your photo come to life was so exciting. I finally felt that same excitement again. The next day I had an outfit change, then I had some photos of the model’s sister I experimented with. I’ve now run out of ugly portraits and need some new ones. When school opens again and I can be back in studio, I’ll be sure to take some ugly portraits. Or maybe this method would look even better with great portraits. I’ll have to experiment. I’ll have to experiment with non portraits too. Why not? I have all time in the world right now waiting for covid to come to an end.
Ah yes, the outfit change. The featured image is the outfit change and my favorite shot of them all. All it was was a textured window with white bars. I even thought it was a stupid idea when I shot it. You just never know what you can do with your stupid ideas hahaha. Here is one final shot. I quite like this one as well.
I hope you are all having fun with your experiments 🙂
