How to Pose for your Headshot--get the Tension out.

I was asked by the Great Donna Kublin, President of the Arts Council of the North Valley, to take this headshot of the new Chair, Doug Clark, who is a realtor, and is also a Republican member of the House of Representatives. He was so handsome and nice and self effacing, and he brought his ridiculously polite and interesting son with him. The whole thing took less than 20 minutes, including powder, shirt change and test shots. He was a great subject. This man has this picture thing down! Doug was very relaxed, and didn't have any tension showing the whole time we shot, which was really cool. One thing that I noticed about him is that he was totally up for anything that I asked of him, which is rare...it shouldn't be, because you as a photographic subject should be totally willing throw yourself into your photographer's hands, without being pummeled into submission, but as you know, having your pictures taken feels awkward sometimes, so people stiffen up. Doug didn't. Most people hold tension in their mouths, or shoulders, or, strange as it may seem, their hands, and when in stressful situations, like going to the dentist, getting assulted by a burgular, having your picture taken (!), the stress starts there. If you wake up in the morning and your jaw hurts, you hold tension in your mouth. Take special care not to clench when you are having your pictures taken. Open your mouth...just a little. Let your lips come apart a little. You can't clench your teeth with your mouth open, now can you? Likewise with your hands. If you're in a scary movie and have to take the person next to you to the hospital for severe brusing, you are a squeezer. There's nothing that turns a tender, endearing shot of a mother and child into a claw handed nightmare than someone who holds tension in their hands. Practice relaxing your hand by holding sand, or an egg during stressful situations before your photo shoot. A huge tension gatherer is in your shoulders. Stand sideways and look in the mirror. If your shoulders are covering your ears and you're not auditioning for a J.K. Rowling film, you have a problem. The best way to get the tension is to let a friend, one of those friends who is usually too pushy for every day hanging around with, in on your secret. Ask him or her to push your shoulders down every time they see them riding up. If your friend isn't around, keep pushing your shoulders down for two weeks. You'll be so surprised at how often your shoulders are up and how high they are. The biggest place that people hold their tension is their foreheads. Take a big piece of tape, stick it on your forehead, and go about your day. You should probably do this while you're at home, preferably alone, but I have witnessed some of my queen bee models walking through the mall with tape on their foreheads, probably being copied by whe wannabees of the world

the next day at school in an attempt to be cool. You will not believe how many times that tapes pulls at your forehead throughout the day. Keep the tape on for a couple of weeks and your eyebrows will stop having a mind of their own. As an extra added bonus, you won't need Botox nearly as often.

The Dennis Family

I have been shooting the Dennis family since Natalie Dennis was born. I put her tiny little self into a basket, ans she just slept away while we shot her in all of her beautiful baby glory. Now she's nine and a half, which makes me older than dirt. Still glorious, but piercing blue eyes wide open, along with her parents whom I adore, and her grandparents who I wish would adopt me, but more about them later, strong silent type brother Michael and sister, "wild woman of the west", Michelle, we had a lot of fun!

Senior Picture Time!

There are Senior Pictures and then there are SENIOR PICTURES. Last week I shot a SENIOR PICTURE. By all rights, it should have been a tough shoot...115 degrees, a dog was involved, boys notoriously hate Senior Pictures, but this Zach was so incredibly cool. He is quite possibly the best swimmer in the state, recruited by EVERY school in the Big Ten, plus Navy, super smart, interesting, funny, has a great look, yet was completely self effacing and modest about his accomplishments, with the nicest mom and sweetest girlfriend to boot. Even the dog was the coolest dog ever. I love it when a plan comes together. It's days like these that make me just love my job. These pictures, by the way, except for the painting, are completely untouched.

I shot the coolest little boys this weekend, Luke, Ty, and Jack,sitting on a rock in Sand Harbor, Lake Tahoe, at sunset. They were all boy, just scampering around on the rocks. I just loved being a part of it. I never get to shoot boys, so this was a great time for me. Afterward, I stood in the lake and they all jumped in and splashed around. It was so cold! I got the towel shots afterwards when they were all warm and cozy.

The California Earthquake had Nothing on this. Knowing When to Cut Your Losses.

So you're at a shoot, feeling good, and all of a sudden the baby you're shooting freaks out and starts crying in your direction. What do you do? In my experience, a baby can recover twice from crying, but the third time, pack up, it's over. But what if the baby you're shooting doesn't stop crying, and in fact, is crying AT you?

I had the privilege of shooting a four generation picture of a lovely baby this past week,, with her beautiful mother, ridiculously personable, cool grandmother, who definitely doesn't look like a grandmother, and amazing great grandmother, who was a tremendously good sport hanging around outside in 90 degree plus weather, along with adorable big brothers and an aunt who truly doesn't look like she just had a baby two months ago, and the sweetest little girl cousins. All went really great, until the shoot was pretty much over and I was just taking my last few grab shots, which are usually the best shots of the group, because everyone feels like the shoot is over and finally relax. It's usually the best part of the day...I get amazing shots, everyone feels great...but my sweet little baby started screaming and wouldn't stop unless I was out of sight! Golly, I was totally embarrassed. It felt like the house was shaking. I started sweating. I don't sweat. My husband reveres my sweatless self, because I never sweat, never. But Secret, you failed me that day, because I had rivulets of ice cold sweat dripping down my back as I watched that baby scream. Not to say that people don't scream at the sight of me, but usually it's ummmm...joy? short-lived? Not vehement enough to cause glass to break? I secretly wanted to take the picture, and indeed, I have done it with my own kids, but, not knowing this client, didn't want to offend further. I tried humor,I tried to sing to the baby. I tried the fail proof peek a boo...nothing. Having nothing but time, I started to think about it. I mean, really, a person comes into your home, does a little itsy bitsy spider and a hokey pokey or two and hides their eyes behind a big black thing, and a child is supposed to look at the black thing and smile? Barbaric. Why would a child smile at a big black thing where a face should be? That kind of thing is a social grace, like using the serving spoon to put the potato salad on your own plate instead scooping from the community bowl with fingers of questionable origin. I get it. I wanted to scream myself. The decibel level increased. The baby was screaming on the exhale AND the inhale. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to ask for my check, but I had to be paid, and who wants to pay a person for making their child cry? So I did the only thing I could do. I looked at my film, and, gratified to see that I had a enough major winners that the mom will love me later, made a lame joke about how horrid it is to pay a person for making their kid cry, grabbed my check, and made my exit. As soon as I left, the baby stopped crying. I stopped sweating. And bless her heart, the mom made the check out for more than my sitting fee. After I made her baby cry! I don't think I would have been that generous. Good golly I love my job.

Portrait of a Diver...or How to Express Joy Without Even Trying...(but with a Lot of Photoshop!)

The original...10 layers in photoshop

...and two views of different little tweaks of the layers...bringing some layers forward and changing opacity on others...I'm not sure which one I like best...what do you think?

I was feeling pretty low today after I heard that the man I photographed had passed away, and I wasn't able to sleep at all, so I wanted to make something really alive of someone filled with joy. My daughter's diving teacher, Jeff Kunselman, has so much joy when he dives that for the past couple of summers I have been photographing him and making him a gift as a thank you for passing that kind of joy to Zoe, and this is what I came up with tonight. A couple of weeks ago, I shot him diving off the high dive, which he does all the time during class, just for the fun of it, (remember, when you shoot action, make sure to put your shutter speed at above 250 or else your picture will be mush) and then tonight I put down layers, ten of them, of him in his various stages of dive. I removed all of the opacity of nine of the layers, then worked on removing the environment around him with the eraser tool and the magnetic lasso tool, which I absolutely adore...it makes everything so much easier all the way around...and played with the hue and saturation of each layer. Then I duplicated the shot and made each different shot a different color and duplicated and flattened the whole thing and put those layers on top of the whole thing, and I started playing with moving the layers slightly up , down and to the side, and working with different opacities and moving layers around to see which layers should go closer to the top. I made an additional layer of just him standing on the board and enlarged it with the transform tool, then adjusted hue and saturation of him so that it looked right. You can tell that he just loves to dive, and it made me feel a lot better just working on it. I am really going to work on feeling the joy every day from now on.

Tell Them How Much You Love Them. A Lesson I Learned.

Today was a day like every other day. I catered to my children's whims. They fought anyway. I planted flowers. I did some laundry. And a man that I photographed last month died.

It was a casual thing. I was there, he was there. Someone said something funny. He laughed. I took his picture. I posted it with the rest of the pictures I took that day. No one bought it. No big deal. It wasn't his big day. He just happened to be there with a great big deep laugh coming out of his robust frame, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners; a kindly giant kneeling among a bevy of flitting butterfly princesses. I sent it as a gift anyway. And then he died. I took the last picture that was taken of him. They thanked me. I sobbed. And I hugged my family tight.