My First Paying Clients

Emma, Andy and young Archie visited the studio this week, my first paying clients. I think they were as apprehensive as me but once the introductions were over we soon settled on a plan of action.

I started by showing them some mood boards I’d compiled with some ideas for poses. I’d researched these the week before by looking through a couple of stock sites. The boards proved really beneficial and gave a bit of structure to the shoot.

I’d also had a last minute change of mind on my lighting set up for the shots of Archie on his own. Having watched a video tutorial on the phototraining4u site I decided to move my large softbox close into Archie, 45 degrees to his right and just above his head. I’d placed him on white card and used the Lastolite Hi-lite for the background. These shots worked really well and were my favourites from all I took on the afternoon. Archie was a bit overalled and wasn’t really up for to many smiles, despite everyones best efforts, but even so, I’m pleased with the shots I got here.

We moved onto to some standard family poses with Emma and Andy choosing those they particularly liked from the mood boards and after a short break took some full body shots using white paper taped o the bottom of the lastolite with white duct tape, another tip I’d picked up from the Phototraining4u site. The limitations of the small studio became apparent at this point and really, with adults standing, I’m going to need somewhere with a bit more height.

Come the end it was a really enjoyable afternoon. Little Archie had had enough but I’m pleased with some of what we came away with, Emma and Andy seemed happy after a quick review in Lightroom. Just a hundred or so pics to post process now…

Focus on Imaging

A busy week with a visit to the ‘Focus on Imaging’ show at Birmingham and my first paying clients at the small studio I’ve set up at home.

The show rolled round first. We picked on the last day for our trip to Birmingham which I think was a wise move given the numbers who’d visited the previous weekend. I was surprised how few dealers there were in the arena with most the space taken up with large printing displays, framing companies and photo book printers. This suited me as I was looking for a few options to offer my new clients, particularly with framing and book options.

Having quickly filled a bag with handouts and samples I suddenly found myself at the phototraining4u stand with Mark Cleghorn halfway through a photo critique of an apprentice working her way through a training year with him. I’d considered joining his the scheme earlier in the year after watching some of Mark’s tutorial videos on the Lastolite site. Normal price for the first year is £199 but the show price was £99 with a scratch card discount of £50. A clever piece of marketing here, me thinks, as someone else signing up with me had spookily won a £50 discount on her scratchcard.

I must say that since returning and using the site I’ve no regrets whatsoever. The video tutorials on lightroom alone have made a huge difference to the way I post process and the studio lighting demonstrations have been really useful. I’d recommend it to any keen amateur like myself.

Moving on it was time for a quick lunchtime beer (Smithie was driving) and then a trawl around the rest of the display stands. I resisted some of the studio equipment offers but did come away with some Ilford pearl paper which I’ve been really impressed with and I now wish I'd bought more. The show price was £12 for fifty A4 sheets.

All in all a really good day, outstanding value at £8 a ticket and I’ll definitely be going back next year.

Studio Gear

The studio has become a bit of a passion recently but I never seem to have enough equipment for the shots I want to replicate from other blogs and magazines. My two Bowens lights have been really good but I’ve had to supplement them with another borrowed pair and really three lights are a minimum for the sort of high or low key shots I want to take.

To that end I’ve been scouring ebay and similar sites for second hand equipment. Nothing has really come along until about two weeks ago when I spotted a post on the used equipment forum on the Bowens site. I contacted the seller who agreed to split the bundle he had for sale and to cut a long story short I picked up a Bowens Esprit Gemini 750 kit last weekend.

These supplement my 400’s really nicely, especially with the Lastolite Hi-Lite I’ve been using for my high key shots. I picked the lights up Saturday morning and had them up and running on Saturday afternoon taking shots of my work colleagues (someone’s leaving present). All seemed to go well on the day, the shots on the camera screen looked good but then despair when I checked them later on the computer, every shot had a horrible yellow cast. Eventually this was quite easily rectified, all to do with my white balance set up which I’d set to flash. Apparently flash heads have a tendency to yellow over time although taking a custom white setting sorts this. Taking the WB down to 4850 in lightroom cleared everything up.

Lesson learnt I had the lights out again Sunday afternoon for some baby shots in my small home studio. I’ve never really been that happy with my previous attempts with the high key stuff but after researching on the net and trying various settings with a stand in doll I finally came away with some shots I was really happy with.

For me the Lastolite works best one and a half stops brighter than my key light and I set the background to f13. My key light was set to F8 but I then opened the camera up to F7.1. Whether that’s a quirk of the camera or something else I don’t know but the settings worked well and gave me the skin tones I’d been looking for. Nice white card and careful placement of the key light gave me the crisp white fore grounds I’d been looking for and altogether I had very little to do in Light room as regards post processing.

I suppose that’s the advantage of having a set studio and hopefully I should be able to replicate this set up on Friday when I have my first commercial shoot.