8 from 2018 & 9 for 2019

Is it too late to make a new year's post? Well in the spirit of "It's Never Too Late" (because one of my favorite quotes, which is often attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald but most likely from Eric Roth, speaks to this idea, and I just finished reading The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan -- which, by the way, is about $5 for a paperback copy on Amazon right now so I highly encourage you to cop it), I'm still going to make this post even though it's February.

Since I started off my photography business in senior portraits, I thought I would select 8 photos from different shoots I did across the span of last year to share and critique.

8 from 2018

The evolution of style.

1. Desiree, 4.28.18

Desiree was the first CO'18 senior I got to shoot with last year, and the first one who I hadn't met before the day of our shoot. Back then, I had a portfolio on Adobe's host site that comes included with a Creative Cloud subscription. It's still up, but it looks a lot different than it did a year ago. I was really honored that my seniors last year were taking a chance with me since I didn't have much work to show for myself, and I definitely still had so much to learn.

A few things I notice about this photo looking back on it are that it's a bit cooler than I usually like my photos to be, and the image looks a little flat. Most of the shoots I did around this time are cooler -- probably because of the time of day I shot them at, but nothing I couldn't warm up with a few tricks I've learned since then in Photoshop.

2. Katrina, 4.29.18

This shoot was a lot of fun because we basically just wandered around campus looking for unconventional places to take photos. There's the usual list of: Architecture building blue door, Littlefield Fountain, Gearing gates, etc, but Katrina didn't mind searching for inspiration across campus, and that's when I came across this UT Seal in front of the Barbara Jordan statue that I think makes a great spot for photos. Kat also brought her roommates along so it was a good time with them trying to get her to laugh for the pictures.

For this photo, it could be a little brighter and the greens could be softened. I'd probably lift the gray path a bit too, make it less blue and clean it up a bit.

3. Josue, 5.9.18

Josue wanted to take his photos at the Capitol building in addition to The Tower, so we took a walk downtown and it was really nice getting to know him better. I'm pretty introverted so sometimes I get nervous before shoots knowing I'll be spending the next two hours or so talking, but whenever I'm in the midst of a conversation I'm always happy to be building friendships with others.

I was utterly unprepared for this shoot though -- I went a little too close to blue hour (hence the coolness in the photo), and didn't bring a lens with the right focal length for the kind of architecture shots he wanted (to be fair, I only actively used a 50mm and a 35mm on my crop at this time). The green is also a bit too saturated, and the photo is overall pretty dark. I'd probably change the composition too if I reshot it so he wasn't standing at the corner of the pedestal.

5. Brittany, 5.9.18

Brittany was such a joy to meet! Her friend brought a car so we were able to transport to different locations really easily (especially the stadium, thank goodness), and it was also helpful since she had 3 different outfits she was going to wear for the shoot. This was the first full-blown senior shoot I did with multiple outfits and lots of locations, but I'm glad I got to do it with her.

Honestly, this photo that I chose to display here is one of my favorites, but the fact that it turned good is probably more of an accident than anything else. An important part of photography is being able to control the variables to go into a good picture (the composition, the camera settings, the lighting, etc), and trying to not rely so much on "fixing it in post." I was still in that kind of a mindset back during this shoot.

6. Amanda, 5.11.18

Amanda was one of my mentors in my Freshman Research Initiative Lab, and the only one who opted to get senior photos done (even so, I still like the rest of my mentors from her class very much). She brought an Iron Man Tsum Tsum as a prop and I'm still waiting for a senior to bring one that can top that.

We took this photo at the Turtle Pond, which is a really cute location to hit. I'm not a complete fan of the way I composed this image anymore, but I think see some potential for cool ways to play with the way this area is naturally lit, and the reflection in the pond. The photo is also a little dark and I think I boosted the clarity higher than I would had it edited it now. The colors could also use some more dimension, but at this point I still hadn't gotten to playing with that.

7. Ramanika, 12.13.18

Fast forward to the end of 2018 and I got to shoot with Ramanika! She was so easy to shoot with after coming off from four or five other shoots that included different outfits, different shoes, and lots of overtime hours, so I was glad to get to try out my new camera for her session.

I was still learning how to handle the Sony compared to the Nikon I was used to. The colors honestly came out pretty nicely, and the autofocus worked beautifully. But, I made the mistake of shooting in the middle of the day thinking I could fix it all in post. The colors and lighting were a bit strange in all the photos for this set, but I did my best to work with what I had. This photo turned out a lot better than some of the other ones I took this day, but you can see teal and peach strongly dominating the color palette.

8. Sarah, 12.14.18

Sarah was a trooper because you can't tell by looking at it, but we shot on a pretty cold day. Which meant that a lot of the photos came out with a blue hue. Thankfully, I now knew how to warm up the photos. I decided that I wasn't a fan of a teal and peach contrast, but I did like to use warmer colors and soften the cool ones. I still like keeping my images bright, exploring different places to shoot, getting to know my clients and be able to call them a new friend at the end of the shoot, and learn so, so, so much from Youtube videos about how I can continue to improve my Photoshop skills to turn out images that are artistic and cherished for the milestones they serve to represent.

So here it is, the latest senior session I've done and a good representation of how far I've come since April of 2018.

Photos 1-6 were shot on a Nikon D7000 with a 50mm f/1.4 lens, while photos 7 & 8 were shot on a Sony a6300 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens.

9 for 2019

Goals for growth.

And a new year's post wouldn't be complete without a few goals in mind for the upcoming year! I don't like to call them "resolutions," I guess, because I like to think that I'm constantly setting goals for myself and reworking them as I experience more to better move towards the kind of person I want to become. But then again, I guess "New Year's resolutions" are just goals you make at the beginning of the year, so call these what you want.

1. Set limits. As someone who can basically get compelled to do many things if you just text me a ":(", I am definitely also a photographer who will book more shoots than I have the capability for just because A) I really do love any chance to take photos, and B) I want to make people happy. But, I know a bunch of very capable photographers I can refer people to that would probably result in not just a happy client, but a different happy photographer, and a less stressed out me; so I capped the number of senior portrait sessions I have available this semester. Now that that's done, the other goal is to be more serious about the scheduled shoot times. Just for the sake of my schedule, I'm trying to make sure my clients are aware that the session time begins on the time we agreed to meet, and also being mindful of how much time they'll need for a shoot so that it won't go overtime. Photography is kind of a business for me, but ultimately a hobby. And I need to better balance it with the rest of my life -- my personal values, and my career goals.

2. Challenge myself. As in, shoot in challenging light on purpose (but not for a client, lol), shoot portraits with lenses I'm not used to using, at angles I don't normally try -- just try these things to learn and to grow.

3. Collaborate more. Honestly, one of my best photoshoot memories was just going downtown to shoot with Kenji and Aaron (with Priscilla and Grace as our models). No plan, just a time, a few cameras, and a man who made sure we didn't get ripped off by a parking lot. So much of my journey as a photographer comes from what I've learned from other photographers, so collaboration is definitely something I want to keep going into 2019.

4. Capture "imperfect" moments. So I'm the kind of person who rarely takes photos. Most of the photos in my phone are screenshots, not pictures I take when I'm out with friends or doing things. I save my photographer mode for when I'm holding my camera, perfectly composing a moment of someone who has prepared their wardrobe and hair and makeup to be photographed. But those moments aren't real. Real moments are imperfect, hair messy, makeup smudged, dressed in the clothes you wore to class. I want my photo album to have more of those too, whether it's on my iPhone or my camera. This is my last semester of college and I can tell you the last seven have been far from perfect. But they worked out the way they were supposed to, the hard moments and the good moments each bringing me here today. I want to remember those things too. (But ALSO, the other extreme of never taking photos is just taking photos of every single thing and not living in the moment because you're trying so hard to freeze it in a picture. I don't think this will be a problem for me though lol, but gotta stay aware.)

5. Make more videos. When I bought the Sony a6300, the saleswoman at Precision Camera told me it could shoot in 4K. Did I fully understand the implications of that? No, not really. But I went off to buy an SD card that was on sale for Black Friday that could record 4K footage, and decided I was going to make a video for the senior trip. Cinematography is pretty hard, guys. And I didn't get to capture that much footage, but I did live in the moment and I had a little something to show for it in the end that I was pretty happy with.

6. Try different subjects. Now that I got myself a nice 18-105mm zoom lens, I've begun to take more landscape shots and it's pretty fun. For someone who solely shot portraits on my Nikon (I literally never removed my 50mm lens from my camera because it was the only one that really looked any good, and the camera itself was already so heavy anyway), landscape is new terrain for me. I'm liking it a lot though, and it's definitely easier using a wide angle to take landscape than the 50mm I was always trying to use.

7. Help other photographers. Like I said in #3, I've learned a lot from other photographers. I'm always a mixture of surprised and flattered whenever anyone asks me for photography advice (because I never truly think I actually know what I'm doing???), but I really like trying to pass down the few tips I've picked up along the way because that's what other people have done for me. So I'm not going to go around offering unsolicited help, but I don't mind answering questions and having someone shadow me at a shoot every so often (plus every time I've had someone do this, I get even more photos to give to the client)!

8. Keep learning. There are so, so many resources to learn more about photography. I've basically learned everything I know from the Internet (I've never taken a photography class), from all the hardware stuff to the editing tricks in Photoshop. As with everything else in this world, you can never stop learning more, and you never want to feel like you've plateaued.

9. Work through the creative blocks. I used to write a lot of fiction. Heck, I just completed the Creative Writing program at UT last spring. But it was so easy to make excuses why I wasn't writing, or simply sit around saying I was waiting for inspiration to strike because writer's block was getting in the way. Unfortunately, life doesn't just wait around for the perfect conditions for something to happen. Now that I'm more focused on photography, I'm determined to work through any creative blocks I encounter to continue becoming a better photographer, creator, and artist. Not just because it's a huge investment (lol at the lenses I just bought/the CC subscription plan), but because I really do enjoy exercising my creative muscle in this way. And you can't make the gains if you only lift the easy weights.