Today’s Post by Joe Farace
It doesn’t matter if you take a great picture if no one knows what it’s about.”—Carl Mydans
There are lots of advantages to shooting glamour portraits in a studio, even if it’s just a temporary set-up in your basement or garage. The biggest advantage being you have total control over the environment or as I like to paraphrase the Outer Limits voice, you can control the lighting, the background and subject. In the studio, you don’t have to worry about wind or changeable weather conditions. But there is something about a location shoot that can’t be duplicated in the studio and that’s the location itself.
Shooting in Cancun may be too expensive for most of us but shooting in local parks is free and entry to state parks costs less than a few bucks a day. A few of my local parks even have beaches as hard as it may for you to believe considering I live in Colorado.
If you find that shooting in a park, especially during the less crowded weekdays, works for you, I suggest that you get an annual pass. Many state parks have inexpensive annual passes that cover all parks statewide.
When you take the time to look around, attractive and dramatic locations are all over the place. The search begins by looking for places that will accommodate to the requirements of glamour photography and the client’s comfort as well. When I made the photograph at right, there were not many people around, maybe a few birdwatchers, so I didn’t have to worry about gawkers interrupting the session. That would probably not be the case on a weekend.
How I made this shot: I photographed my former muse Tia Stoneman at Barr Lake State Park, on the Wildlife Refuge part of the park, away from the lake. Camera was an old Olympus E-300 with 150mm f/2.0 lens (loved that lens) with an exposure of 1/640 sec at f/4 and ISO 200.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat Joe to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here. And if you do, many thanks.
If you’re interested in learning how I shoot available light glamour portraits, please pick up a copy of Available Light Glamour Photography which is available new from Amazon.com for $17.43 or used for the giveaway price of $12.79, as I write this. The Kindle version is $16.56 for those preferring a digital format.