A Before and After makeup Slider created in photoshop can make all the difference between a so-so image and one that is more interesting. Sometimes it’s just not convenient to apply makeup before a shoot, or the client has a cold, or doesn’t want anything too extravagant. Because the makeup is applied after the shoot is over, I am able to apply any degree of additional enhancements the client might want to see. Here’s an example from a number of years ago. It’s a very simple image but I enhanced...
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Final edits are so magical. They take a lovely shot and make it spectacular. I added a gorgeous background, created flowing fabric and chose a color family that really works. Elegance is the name of the game.
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Beauty Therapy: It isn’t so much in the doing as in the being. When a client comes to the studio for a portrait, something happens. We share (as women tend to do) the things that matter to us, that concern us, our pasts, our families, our pets. Why we choose to live in this location. How, for many, this is a time in their lives where they’re changing direction. A new relationship, a new job, a new endeavor. So there is an opening up of the self, long before the camera is even focused on us. Then a second blossoming of...
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Sixteen years in the making. Cast of two happy married people. Setting: all over the country including LA, Boston, Venice, CA Beverly Hills, Wichita, KS, Bandon OR, Boulder CO, WestportCT and Arroyo Grande, CA. I’d help raise my brother 14 years my junior and felt that experience would hold tight for a while It was the 70’s and zero population growth was the theme of the day. Call me a Reluctant Mom. So for 16 years we were just we two. Then upon visiting a dear friend...
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There’s a huge gulf between life transitions and personal transformations. The first can be a new job, new town, marriage, divorce, engagement, motherhood, new friendships, aging. Transformations are how we change because of those transitions. Some transitions are easy to adjust to-others may seen to come upon us all at once and we don’t know where to turn. We need to find fortitude and will to see across the gulf to the other side, where we may be utterly transformed by out experiences. In fact there may be...
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The before is what people see of you on a daily basis. Sometimes the hair could use a bit of fixing up, or you forgot to do one eye when applying your makeup, or the late night schedule has left you with the slightest blue bags under your eyes. People are very forgiving however, and because we are mobile, they generally don’t pay much attention to the little things because we’re being viewed from many angles, different light, lots of expressions as we talk to one another. But put us in front of a...
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When I got an unexpected call for photographic images that would show the caller at his best sans clothing, I was uncertain how to proceed. I had taken loads of beautiful portraits of women, some with only a sheet to cover intimate parts of the female body, but this man was looking for something quite different. He’s interested in pursuing studio modeling for artists and photographers. It’s something he had done in his early life and thought he might try it again. I have to admit that at first I was quite...
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My mother died in 2007. Fortunately I had a friend who loved snapping shots of anything that moved. So I do have some photos of us together. Kodak moments so to speak. I have them on my wall. They’re 4×6 snaps and yes they do represent who we were on that autumn day. But they certainly don’t show us at our best. The posing wasn’t too good all lined up like little tin soldiers. The light caused us to squint into the hazy sun. There was no real connection, done on the spur of the moment as it...
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We’ve all heard the saying “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. But we’ve also heard that it generally takes 12 times for someone to hear about you and your business before it actually registers. So which one is valid? Certainly, a stained tie or a “down in the heels” pair of shoes may not make the statement you want people to remember. So what about a business headshot that says less about you than you’d like. Maybe it was just a bad day, or the lighting...
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I read a little blog today that examined the use of the words Mommy, Mom, Ma and Mother. With the advent of yet another “Mother’s” Day, I thought this was a pretty intriguing subject for discussion. Do we automatically infantilize ourselves by holding on to the moniker we used for our mothers when we were young as in: “Mother, what did you do with my notebook?” Or “Mommy, thanks for the beautiful birthday card.” Is our choice dictated more by what we were trained to say as...
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