Monday, September 3, 2007

Never Let a Photographer do This to You

I know that it sounds silly to bring it up, but skill, talent and experience really are key when it comes to having your pictures taken. Every single person, no matter how disappointed you might have been in your past with the photos that you have had taken of you, has at least one spot on your face, or one "sweet spot", as I like to call it, where you really look great. Lucky people have many, and model types seem to never take a bad picture. It's all in the angle. Consider these shots of one of my very favorite clients, who came to me wanting headshots for a play she wanted to try out for. This is a very beautiful girl, inside and out, but look what happens if I'm lower than her: This is the first shot that we took, so she's feeling a little weird, and for purposes of this article, I purposely got lower than she. This girl is a size zero, and I am here to tell you (and you can see from the next shot), that she doesn't have even the faintest semblance of a double chin, but from underneath, everyone looks like they have a double chin. Don't let anyone shoot from underneath you...EVER! That's just as given as don't stand straight to the camera, don't say "cheese", don't talk while your pictures are being taken...you have control over your pictures, and you have to make sure that your photographer sees your sweet spots: Look what happens if I have her bend, tilt, and put some beautiful light on her, in the jeans jacket and yellow shirt: and now as I find another sweet spot as I
shoot down a little on her: There are a couple of other weird tricks that
shooting from beneath... Beautiful light...Always a Yes! Sweet! Fabulous light and a
A BIG NO NO! Shoot late afternoon or early Great angle make this shot
morning if shooting outdoors a winner.
ask to see a test shot to check
the shadows.
photographers try that I totally don't get, like not knowing their light, casting funny shadows, shooting with a really wide (short) lens ( makes your nose look big and your body look wide) and letting you keep your body straight toward the camera, so that every single bulge shows and looks bigger.I think that the biggest sin, though, is working the model so much and so long that they just suck the life out of them. I am so weird when I shoot, I tell big fish stories to make people laugh, I yell and jump around a lot, I ask my models to do outrageous things, just to see what they'll do. And more than anything else, I SHOOT. Heavily. After the fakey smile, after the stock pose, when you let down your guard and have a real moment. It's what makes my pictures win awards...that, and I am lucky enough to have amazingly fabulous clients come to me.