Lesson Title: Glamorous Senior Portraits
Lesson Description:
Balance spontaneous poses with unusual lighting. Try a fresh way
to move your model/subject. Experiment with alternative lighting.
Keep the image loose and natural without suffering technically.
If the lighting is bad, no matter how great the model looks,
the image will suffer.
Lesson: Begin by studying fashion
magazines such as Elle, Vogue, Harper Bazar, and “W.”
Don’t copy their images, but get inspired by them and observe the
details. Look at how models move in each of the ads and
editorials. Look how the model’s hair and makeup work together,
and look at the environment / studio they are shooting in — look
— look — look, and look again!
It is extremely important for you, as the imagemaker, to be relaxed
prior to the photo session for total control and creative expression.
I like to listen to dance music, such as 1FM dance on iTunes. This
engages the right side of my brain and gives me an overall relaxed frame of
mind and attitude. In turn, it provides me with a feeling of creative
power. You need to feel and think like you are in High School —
again! Your model has the same needs
as you, but their focus is to create desired effects on the front side of
your camera system. Talk with the model, not at them. Make your model
feel relaxed and comfortable, but do not fake it because it will quickly
become apparent. You must constantly reassure the model they look
great and the session is going extremely well. The success of your
photo session is dependent on how your model feels about themselves, your
directions and control of the entire event.
Give your model their own space and encourage them to move freely
within it so you can capture spontaneous images with movement. Let the
model select music to be played during their photo shoot, and suggest they
use it to move freely. Ever so gently, ask that they spin, roll, and
lean into your lens. The import thing to remember is to let the model
do their own thing while you work within their space at what they do, not
how you want them to perform. It is your job to see that their
movements do not look contrived. You must constantly look for new and
fresh expressions while thinking up ways to elicit them. The mental
ideas we created by simply looking at those magazines at the beginning of
this lesson will help you at this point in this shooting
assignment. There are all sorts of ways you can get the results you
are looking for, such as: 1.
Ask you model to look down or away from the camera then glance or
quickly look back. 2. Suggest they
breath through their lips to make them look fuller.
3. Allow their hair to move and be messy sometimes.
4. Get a makeup artist for an evening or glamour makeup look at the
end of their normal session. Fake eyelashes are big this year, try
having your model use them. 
With and without glamour
makeup
Your lighting is the other
critical element of this lesson. Do anything, but do not use your
lighting the way you always have. This is a self-assignment and you
must do something new to push yourself in order to grow and stay
competitive. Try using hot lights and sharp lighting; then discover
the intimacy that the subject has with the camera verses flash
photography. There are many hot lights that will work; fresnel lenses,
spot lights or even my modified hot soft box (seen in the video). Be
creative in your discovery of finding hot light sources. Move the light
around the model to see how the lighting direction changes the mood of an
image. Don’t forget to keep your eye on shadows! A bad
shadow can ruin an image. Look and compare the different results of
your light sources. 
This image demonstrates the fresnel lens.
If you are using hot lights, try using your camera in the continuous
shooting mode so you are sure to capture all the energy and movement of the
model. If you are using strobes, and the recycle time of the power
pack is quicker then half a second, you will also be able to use the camera
in the continuous mode, too. 
An image lit with a picture
light.
It doesn’t have to
be expensive, it just has to be hot.
The inside and outside of my
modified softbox
with two 300-watt
light bulbs.
Now, go have
fun! Create beautiful, spontaneous, refined, glamorous (but not too
sexy) images using sharp hot lights. This is your playtime to find the
balance between images that are too loose and too controlled. Relax
and be powerful with your creative expression. When you've completed the
assignment, submit three distinctive, unique images of the same
model.
Reference Material:
See more of his senior photography at www.evansimages.com
Click here to view Storyteller
Bios. | 
