A lot of times when I tell people, "Im a full-time Photographer" their response is something like 'OOOOH! How fun! I would love that!' or 'I bet thats an easy job! You must have great work hours...' These things are true, for the most part! Today, I want to take you into a behind the scenes look into what really happens with photographers on a daily basis! It may or may not be as glamorous as you think...
Let's dive into the life of a photographer at a family session! Sounds like it would be a pretty relaxing evening meeting up with a nice, laid back, not a care in the world family, right?! Well, I'm not going to lie... IT IS. That old quote that says 'Choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life' is kinda of true! When you love what you do, you look forward to getting to do more of it! There's rarely a time that I can remember dreading a photo shoot! OK now, let's get honest, sitting at my desk for a good 80% of every day editing though thousands of images does get pretty tiresome. Waking up every morning to e-mails from past current and future brides, families, seniors, and a few miscellaneous shoots does make my head spin! BUT, it's what comes with it... and a lot more too!
Speaking of 'coming with it', there's a lot that comes with a Family Shoot! We are excited to share with you a little bit of how we work! When we arrive at a family shoot, we always introduce ourselves and try our best to remember everyones names! Im not going to lie, I'm HORRIBLE with names... don't take it personally! So after we introduce ourselves, we like to set up the first picture! Usually, its something pretty simple! We don't like to scare people with the first pose! I think it's important that our clients have time to warm up to us, as well as us getting to know them... THEN we bring out the fun cool crazy stuff!
Meet the Smith Family! They were our guinea pigs for this behind the scenes look! We've known the Smith's for a few years now and when they asked us to shoot their family pictures, we were totally up for it! Many of you are familiar with The Barn at Twin Oaks Ranch... THE wedding barn... Well, these guys own it! And rock it!
There was a field of yellow flowers on the property so I drug the family, Kathryn, and myself right into the middle of the flowers! We were all sneezing, sniffing, and our air pipes were closing up. The smell of those wildflowers were literally choking us! So, in attempt to get us out of those flowers ASAP, we started shooting like mad!
There's ALWAYS something I see through my lens that distracts my eye from the focal point of the picture, so a lot of times I 'Weed-Eat' with hands to take that distraction away! The less editing I have to do at my computer, the better... which is why i spend a lot of time during the shoot to make sure my lighting it perfection... BUT, in this picture, thats exactly what I'm doing... a little grooming!
Lesleigh and Ken are thinking "Ummm, did you ask if you could do that?!" Haha! Whatever it takes, right guys?!
So, grass stained hands, check! Allergies going crazy, check!
In this next picture, I want to introduce you to my 'shoot face'. Kathryn always makes fun of me, but what can I say?!
I finally decided that I would get the Smith family out of the flowers, because I'm not joking... we really were dying. I did, however, stay in the flower bed to shoot though the flowers! Kathryn and I always try our best to play off one another to come up with unique poses and something 'different' for each family! Even if it takes giving direction from the middle of a flower field, thats what will happen!
Im not even sure I can call these flowers... they're WEEDS. Pretty weeds. Photogenic weeds.
Shooting in full sun is not something we typically like to do unless we are looking for a very washed out buttery image, which we do love! You really have to be in the perfect spot for the color to be just right when shooting full sun... and 9 times out of 10, there is a tree or bush growing in the spot that you need in. So, by all means hop into the bush!
So lets recap... Grass stained hands. Allergies going crazy. Scratches from the thorns in the bush.
...but its all SO worth it. A lot of times when shooting in full sun, I'll hold my free hand up to block some of the sun thats hitting my lens! The image below is what we ended up with, and its absolutely stunning! Couldn't be happier!
A lot of times we encourage people to bring their own props. We have a huge stash of 'go-to props' when all else fails, but it would be impractical for us to buy new props for every session... We have sessions literally every evening. There would be no way!
However, when families DO bring props, we sure don't mind to give a helping hand! Especially when you're walking though a pasture... dodging poop, swatting bugs and kicking dirt! All in a days work!
How fabulous is that golden tractor seat stool?! Lesleigh is so stink in' crafty it makes me sick!
Meet Indian Boy Kolton! He was up for EVERYTHING! We love it when Kids participate willingly! It really makes our life 10x easier! There's a few times during a shoot that I may decide that a 'laying down' picture is in order! Don't worry, I'll never make you do something that Im not willing to do myself. If you have to lay down, I'm coming with you! It's important for us photographers to shoot the subject on the same plain... or plane?! (I can't decide which one is correct! Plain? Plane? Even Google didn't know!) Our specific style doesn't really call for any crazy angles... we like super clean, to the point images! BUT, we can get crazy though, no doubt about that!
We even put ourselves in harms way for the sake of an amazing image! How many photographers do you know that would let a little boy shoot at you with a bow and arrow... okay, there really weren't any arrows, I was just being dramatic. Still though! There have been times when I think... did I really just do that?! For instance, we had a bride and she wanted a ring shot on the end of her new husbands shotgun... So, yes. Yes I did. He pointed the gun at me and everything.
Hashtag so worth it.
I usually end up running a pair of shoes or an article of clothing every shoot. I really try to be careful, but sometimes desperate measures call for desperate means!
All in all, besides the bees, bugs, cuts, ruined shoes, hay, poop, pollen, mud, dust, dirt, mosquitos, allergies, life threatening poses, equipment hauling, sweat, sweat, and more sweat... we REALLY DO love what we do! We have grown so much as photographers AND as people while enduring this life as photographers! Its not all glamor and peaches, y'all, but we do it because we love it.
It's always more important for us to click with the client than to just show up and click with the shutter... thats not what it's about! We are documenting real life! We are representing the present, because once its photographed, it becomes the past!
One of our favorite photography quotes, and I leave you with this:
"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured FOREVER... it remembers little things long after you have forgotten them"
And thats why we do what we do... simply to remember.
Happy Wednesday!
No comments:
Post a Comment