Shooting Solo
This last week I did my first solo photo shoot of a couple. A friend photographer from JHB, Doug Place, was here in CT to do an engagement shoot with his wife Carla coming along to assist, and he suggested that whilst here, I do a shoot with them. The experience would be good for me, giving me the opportunity to practice doing a shoot on my own, and they have not had many photos taken together since their wedding, a win/win situation. Doug is a photographer whose work I admire (http://www.dougplace.com) and he is in there with the top 50 SA photographers, he is also someone who has mentored me on my journey with photography, so when I got a call from him suggesting that I do a shoot of him and Carla, I was mildly terrified but excited none the less.
We enjoyed a day of wine tasting where I took some very informal shots of them and the next day we took a stroll on Muizenberg beach for some more formal photographs. As planned I did learn a lot from the experience and these are some of the tips I took away from it:
Take time to consider all the aspects of your shot, don’t rush yourself. I had stupidly put allot of pressure on myself about this shoot and didn’t make space for the fact that this was my first solo job. I tried to work at the pace of someone who had been doing this for a while, instead of acknowledging that this was a first and I may need to build myself up to being as fluid, fast and confident as an experienced professional.
If you are rushing yourself you are likely to focus more on either what’s going on inside your camera or what’s going on in front of it and end up neglecting one, the other, or both. For me, in general, it was what was going on inside my camera that I gave all the attention to, I was focused on my settings, getting my exposure, depth of field, sharpness/movement and composition right and neglecting to assess the lighting how it was falling on my subjects, how they were responding to it, if shadows were falling behind them and how I should work with those factors. Looking back there were so many times when I thought why didn’t I use a scrim there, get them to stand further away from the wall there and why did I have them facing that way? I knew better. All the theory I needed to know was there but in my nervous, rushed state I was only using half of it, and had I stopped, taken the pressure down a notch and thought calmly before each shot, I would have given myself the opportunity to consider everything a bit better.
On two of the courses I have been on, I was told that as a photographer you need to act confident and do things quickly, even when you are unsure, because this way your subjects think you are super professional and won’t get restless when you are taking time between shots. Having been on a solo shoot now, I couldn’t disagree more, you will look like a professional when you hand over amazing shots and no one will remember that you took a little longer between getting them, and your confidence will grow naturally with getting results you are proud of.
Don’t be shy to do what you need to get a good shot, in the end the people you are photographing are there because they want good pictures, and if you are stopping yourself from doing something because you don’t want to put anyone out, you have missed the point. If you have a vision, go for it and don’t hold back. I had two shots in mind that I wanted to get Doug and Carla to do, nothing crazy or over the top, but a little more complicated than your average shot. Instead of going for them, I held back not wanting to send them up a hill, go scouting for that slope or make them roll their jeans up a little higher so they don’t get wet and I regret it now because those more creative shots are often ones that end up being your “cover shots”.
Don’t fall for the idea that the more shots you take, the more options you are likely to have. I tried to get as many shots as possible which took away from getting as many quality shots as possible. Fewer well thought out photographs are worth far more than many rushed photographs. The photographs that I had planned well came out beautifully and I didn’t need 4 or 5 versions of those photographs to choose from, the few I took came out as planned. The shots that I was a bit trigger happy on however, ended up being a bunch of relatively average shots, and those were often the ones I didn’t bother to “flag” in Lightroom.
Be aware of the comfort of your subjects. Doug has sensitive eyes and when there was bright light, he ended up squinting. We tried to do a countdown to each shot where he would open his eyes on the count of three but it didn’t really work, I should have been using a scrim. I didn’t notice it on the camera screen but when I pulled them onto the computer I had great shots that ended up being unusable because of the expressions. If your subject isn’t comfortable, do something about it because it will end up coming across in your image. Professional models train themselves to work with bright lights and look turned on even if they are in ridiculously uncomfortable positions. With wedding photography on the other hand, you are working with normal people who squint when it’s bright, shiver when it’s cold and generally don’t know how to look like they are head over heels in love or having fun if they are uncomfortable.
I am so grateful for this opportunity because I learned a lot from it. Even as far as the more technical things go I realised I had some misconceptions. For instance I had been told that the golden rule with getting sharp images is f8 is great, not so much the case, but that’s for another post.
If I had to make one strong suggestion for someone studying photography through shadowing, make sure you practice being the one in charge of the shoot. Take your friends out for shoots, if you are at a family braai, offer to have an impromptu family shoot in the garden. Just don’t think that you will be able to rock up on a shoot and apply all the theory you know. Driving back from the shoot I told my boyfriend that I was making a promise to myself never to watch a photographer at work and criticize how they are doing things. It’s harder than it looks and you may think you know your stuff, but it only counts if you know how to employ all that knowledge on the job, when the pressure is on, and the best way to make sure you learn to do that, is with practice. I have started to line up a few more solo shoots in my spare time so that next year, when I am in the driver’s seat, I am comfortable behind the wheel.
Here are some of the pics from the day…
The World in Thirds 
