Why hire a photographer?

I had been wanting to shoot this project for a while now and finally scheduled it in my calendar to make it happen. My goal was to shoot in challenging situations and locations that might have one pretty feature but also lots of distractions (Busy road with cars, weeds, broken down buildings, pedestrians, etc…) I wanted to show that no matter what you can still capture great images. We shot in really harsh lighting and I took an Iphone shot at the same time to show the difference between a professional camera and Phone cameras. The iphone really does not perform well in harsh light, the extreme highlights and shadows are too much for it and the images come out grainy and not sharp. Same beautfiul girl but you can’t really see her in the phone images. To tell you the truth I was surprised even myself by the difference in quality when I put them side by side together. It was a shock even for me!

I also wanted to illustrate the difference between a professional photographer and novice. I handed my same professional camera and lens over and I’m showing the two best images that were taken. I often hear things like “wow your camera takes great pictures!” But this really illustrates that even with great gear you need to have the knowledge and experience to utilize it’s potential.

These are taken the same day in the same harsh lighting situation. I see this a lot where people will take their subjects and put them in direct sunlight, this creates really harsh shadows on your subjects face and squinting eyes. If  you need to shoot in harsh lighting instead find shade nearby or turn your subject around so that the sun is behind them and then expose your in camera meter for your subject.

In these images this white picket fence makes a great compositional element but right behind it is a warehouse building and dumpsters. Take care when shooting to check your surroundings around the subject and make sure you are optimizing your best angles to compose the shot.

In the images below both of these locations have beautiful blossoming trees but one is right next to a busy road with distracting buildings in the background and the other has a parking lot in the background. Change your perspective, by shifting your angles and using the blossoms to frame your subject it goes from blah to wow! Also a lot of times the blossoms will not only diffuse the light but will also bring what we call a “color cast” onto the subject where some of the shade of surrounding colors are being cast into your subjects face. This can be a bad thing when you’re shooting next to a neon building or color that is not appealing, but when surrounded by pink blossoms the color cast will be a rosy pink glow which looks great on your subject’s skin and will bring out a natural warm complexion.

These last images were also taken in a parking lot, by simply shifting our persepctive and making sure to not overexpose the image too much we were able to bring out the beauitful shades of the lilac bush and our subjects skin.

Hope you enjoyed this short education seriers! More to come and let me know subjects you’d be interested in learning in regards to photography;