Agency portraits and glamour stuff
I had a great afternoon today. A friend of mine asked if I could take some portraits of her Daughter who is a young Dancer/Actress. Dominique is due to sit for a Photographer in September but is auditioning for parts beforehand and needed some emergency shots to send to her Agent.
I've never done any of this type of stuff before but I thought it would be really fun as I know Mother and Daughter quite well and they are both good for a laugh.
Well, what a buzz we got from it. I decided that due to the type of "assignment", I would use my digital SLR as my rangefinder was not really the right tool to use (just thought I'd mention that I'm really a film photographer in case this post gets knocked back). I took out the beast, blew off the dust and cob webs and before I knew it, I was in David Bailey mode (yeah right) on motor wind. This was very different than what I'm used to taking but I really got into the swing of things. We had such a great laugh trying things out and different poses. It was a revelation to me. What a lark. I had a rough idea what I was doing and what we needed to produce for an agency portrait but it didn't matter really. It's something I'd like to try again. I know it's a huge subject but has anyone got any experiences and advice on portraiture and glamour stuff that they want to share.
I've just spent an hour at my computer scanning through 100 RAW files and converting 6 of the best to black and white and y'know I realised as much as the day was fun and we are both pleased with the results, I still dislike spending time at a computer where photography is concerned. I also realised that it's so difficult to focus on the eyes at such wide apertures. I had my model turn slightly to the side for most of the shots and this short movement had a huge effect on depth of field to the extent that I have lots of shots of one sharp eye and one soft eye. Apart from that, the afternoon was full of insight and new ideas.
I hope Dominique goes on to be a star and one day my free first attempts at glamour portraiture may be worth something.
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