NEW AND DIFFERENT IMAGES ON INSTAGRAM
Tags: 1.3.19 Julya Baer Mamiya c330 Kodak portra 800 film portrait
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NEW AND DIFFERENT IMAGES ON INSTAGRAM
Tags: 1.3.19 Julya Baer Mamiya c330 Kodak portra 800 film portrait
© All Rights Reserved
"We question ourselves. How does it make you feel?"
Julya had given me a few images she wanted to emulate, but really, complex lighting is pretty much beyond what I'm able to do, being as I know nothing about lighting and my best "lighting package" is some cheap LEDs made in China.
(Sorry, China, I know you're having a hard time right now, but you know and I know these are some SHITTY lights)
And then there's a satisfaction that seeps in, around the edges of that tension, as I remember the point we started to dial it in, putting lights in my kitchen window, blacking out the entirety of my balcony, using every gel I had in the place, some over a decade old, to mix up the colors.
That rush as the good shots begin to appear in my viewfinder, as Julya relaxes, seeing the growing fruits of our labor. We begin to giggle as we get silly, experiment, put on wigs and wings (I did not put on wigs or wings, that would be pointless), utilize the space, now that we've gotten everything situated.
Looking at this image now, it's not the feeling of easy victory that comes back to me. More like surviving an encounter with a bear.
The bear being lighting.
Not Julya.
Julya is great. Not a bear. Unless she likes bears. In which case she is totally a bear.
So no, not easy, but a win all the same.
Tags: 1.3.19 Julya Baer portrait
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Got my LED "wands" covered in red and purple gels, got the cheap black seamless hung up by a few c-stands, I'm continually using my canned smoke, there's another wand behind Julya, giving her that bit of edge light...this was a real production!
The pictures, yeah, happy with the pictures, but probably more interested in the process, I had to keep Julya present while I was futzing around with all that equipment, it's easy (and I've seen it often) to check out when the photographer's busy adjusting, it's why I like to keep my subjects talking the whole time, keep them engaged, keep them from drifting off.
For shoots like this, that is. For shoots where I Don't have to do any futzing, conversation's got the opposite intent. I want to distract my subject from the fact that we're taking pictures, keep them engaged in the discussion to the exclusion of any thoughts about how they look or how they "should" be posing.
Conversation...it's the Swiss army knife in my photographic tool belt!
Tags: 1.3.19 Julya Baer portrait
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