So recently I’ve been doing a little bit of shooting and a little bit of modeling and its been fun!
Earlier this month I was a second shooter for a wedding with head photographer, Steven Skelton. Steven is a photographer from Georgia and a friend of mine who’s been helping me out a lot lately with my photography. The wedding was extremely nerve racking and I’ve definitely realized that although you can make a butt load of money doing wedding photography…. it’s a lot more work than people think it is and one of the most stressful jobs. All the pressure really is on the photographer because in the future… all you have are the photos to look back on… and you definitely don’t want to look back on the photos and the first thing that pops into your mind is…… “we should have gotten a better photographer!” …..Yeeeeah… no photographer wants that! So I’ve realized wedding photography is something I’m trying to avoid in the future except for the 3 weddings I had already promised people ha. (eeek! nervous!!) I might try to do a little second shooting again sometime, but still try to avoid weddings as much as possible. But I am glad that I’m getting my feet wet in different areas and getting oportunities to do so!
In return for payment from the second shooting, I got a brand new 50mm lens that shoots an aperture of f1.8 which was really exciting for me cause my regular lens only goes as wide as like between f4-f3.6 or somewhere like that. I loved the more shallow depth of field it gives me. And I got to try it out on the engagement session this past Saturday!
I believe the engagement session went really well…. Crystal Medlin was a co-worker of mine a couple years ago so it was great being able to work with someone you can talk to on a more personal level and goof off with and not just a quick aquaintance. It really helps to REALLY get to know the people… at least i’m starting to learn. Sometimes I get so caught up in… okay… what do i need to do… I need to remember this… I need to get that… I need to watch for this…. and I completely forget that I’m actually here to make the people feel comfortable and relaxed and have a good time! I had the session outside my home in the front and back yard where we have plenty of wonderful places to take portraiture that I’m starting to realize and I love it! I was able to really spot out beforehand where I wanted them to be and how I wanted them to be at each spot. I’m learning that it really really helps tremendously if you locate your location either a day or so beforehand and think of what you want to do and how you’re going to do it before the actual date. Sometimes thats not possible which makes the shoot more difficult… but if you CAN scope out the location beforehand… definitely definitely do it. Write things down if you need to! Maybe write down ideas… poses… equipment you’re going to use for each different spot…. or if you can sketch… sketch it out! Things like that really help.
I also need to be more confident in myself.
I lack confidence and people can read it all over my face most of the time. Being a very young looking, female photographer is very very hard sometimes. I’ve had incidents where men have just tried to hit on me…. where men have stared me down like what the heck is this girl thinking or doing here???…. I’ve had men try to tell me how I should shoot…. I’ve had someone try to take a job opportunity away from me…. and try to tell me that I should let someone else handle what I’m doing. And I know that the enemy tries to tear me down, and sometimes I’ll put my camera down. But I always pick it right back up because I love photography and I’m passionate about it. I know that half of the time I have no clue what I’m doing…. but more glory to God for that because somehow I still have people who tell me consistently that they enjoy my photos and at the end of the day thats all I need to keep me going. I just need to have confidence. I’m also debating whether or not to raise my price in shooting portraits because sometimes people even end up paying me more than I ask them to! I think they’re crazy lol.. but again… its about having confidence.
Yesterday I modeled for Steven Skelton because he was working on doing something a little different than what he already had in his portfolio. He got me to wear my blue poofy prom dress and he got this box that he put in the water for me to stand on. Things were kind of complicated because the box wouldnt stay down… the waves in the lake kept pushing it. But he eventually got it down and he set up his AB light… and I was really nervous b/c he said something about if it fell over in the water then I would basically be dead. So I thought… GREAT…. But everything turned out really well. Some people came and went that were watching… and I had a few little girls following me to the restroom to change which was really uncomfortable cause I’m terrible with kids. I made one of them unhook my dress for me so at least I made them productive hahaha. The shoot was really fun and I eventually changed into a black dress and got in the water a little bit. At first when I started doing a little bit of modeling for photographer friends of mine, it made me really uncomfortable being IN FRONT of the camera instead of behind it, but I’m starting to get a little used to it now and trying to have a little more confidence modeling. I think it will really help me in the future too when I’m shooting models b/c I’ll just pose myself and they can mirror me. A few others have asked me to model for them in the future so I’ll see where that takes me! Its fun!
So yeah thanks to everyone who has supported me….. given me advise… let me borrow they’re equipment…. who have mentored me…. and just encouraged me in their compliments. I’m looking forward to hopefully more shoots in the future even if there’s not a lot. And although every single shoot makes me really nervous lol, I know I need to have more confidence in myself. Hopefully I’ll grow more in what I’m doing over the rest of the summer and when I go back into taking classes in the fall. I’m looking forward to that :)
