Intimate Glamour
Sep, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken of my niece at her apartment in California several years ago. I had just gotten started in really concentrating in portraiture from landscape and she was awesome enough to volunteer to have a boudoir session with me. Even though we were both a little nervous it was fun and a great learning experience about posing and having fun during a photo shoot!Time
This photo is one of my favorites from my boudoir series because she is just so natural and quietly beautiful here. I remember it was nearing summer, probably late spring like May, because it was already getting warm outside and I was excited to be shooting indoors with Central California's heat. She was in an apartment that I hadn't seen before so I knew I would be winging it when I got there so we went from room to room seeing what worked the best. It was a bit of a challenge and workout shooting in such a small place but we made it work!Lighting
In all honesty I was pretty new to portraiture and lighting when I took this photo! I had just purchased a basic soft box light and watched a few instructional videos and starting moving it around and shooting. I knew I did not want too much direct light on her and my preference for natural lighting was pointless in a tiny window apartment so I brought the new light along, plugged it in but forgot the extension cord so I was climbing over it at some points, and tried it in different positions and with different levels of lighting on and off!Equipment
Just my Canon T3i crop sensor camera and the only cool lens I could afford, the 50mm 1.8! No other equipment besides that and the soft box light, I don't use flash or tripods as a general practice.Inspiration
I was so captivated by boudoir photography and the glamour look, I wanted to put that together in a shoot. I knew my niece was phenomenal with makeup and had such an exotic, glamorous, beauty about her so I really wanted to put her in a photo where all of that was highlighted but yet it did not look like it was tasteless. Classy boudoir is really what I was going for and she is just gorgeous and made it easy for me!Editing
Absolutely, I adore post-processing! I love art and paintings and bold color and I really wanted to start incorporating that in to my photography. My way of making art with photographs so I had been heavily learning about post-processing and following some of the greats to learn from them. I actually did not post-process this photo until quite a while after I took it. Once I had learned a few thing about Photoshop, textures and actions from some amazing photographers I went back to this photo and practiced my new editing look on it. It took this photo from good to amazing for my personal taste. Incorporating some basic portrait tools such as skin softening, popping the eyes, sharpening and using texture was essential in the post-processing of this photo.In my camera bag
As of right now I still only have my Canon T3i and my old Canon Eos Rebel as a backup. I generally only shoot with my 85mm 1.8 but my 50mm 1.8 is a close second and those are the only lenses I have and use (the kit lenses are sitting on a shelf like the unpopular stepchildren but I still have them). I also always carry two different sized reflectors so I can use one as a scrim being that I am primarily an on-location shooter using only natural light.Feedback
I don't feel too much in a place to give advice being that I still consider myself new and learning everyday but I will say don't be afraid to try different shots, poses, angles and lighting! Take the time to learn to shoot in manual so you can actually control your photos, never stop reading, practicing and watching how-to videos. Even if you're not a fan a Photoshop and post-processing you can take great photos if you take the time to learn about composition, manual mode, posing, and how to find the best light. I will literally take the time to plan out a shoot using Pinterest and what I know about the location to create a shot list of sorts in my head. Even with this photo I might have not known the exact layout of the apartment but I had researched how to use my soft box light, posing for a bedroom and how to use manual mode on my camera. Don't be afraid to try things and take the time to be inspired by other photographers and learn what your style will be. We are all artists so find out how you want to take pictures, what you want your end result style to look like and figure out how to create it!
