CATEGORY: BACKGROUNDS AND SETUPS
Portrait planning often starts with decisions about what will appear behind the subjects—whether on location or in the studio. Here are some common mistakes to avoid.
Booking Too Many Studio Sessions
In today’s market, client excitement swirls around shooting in enchanting locations. Photographing on location requires planning—lots of planning. You have to know how your “location” will look at various times of day and in different seasons.
“Okay,” you might ask, “then how about just switching out my studio backgrounds?” Here’s the answer: Even expensive painted murals or green screens do not impress your clients as much as seeing and feeling an actual location. Clients appreciate the effort you make to put creative thought into a shoot that has “atmosphere.” Would you expect to pay as much for a sandwich out of the automat as you would for the same sandwich at a cool bistro with lots of ambiance?
Create an album to show location options and the best times for a session (because the lighting and your shooting direction will change with the time of day). Scout areas in your community and not-so-distant environs for ideal shooting locales. Studio photographers who go out on location usually charge extra. If you don’t have a studio, play up the excitement of location shots even more!
Planning Is Critical
Long before the day of your planned session, run the entire sequence through your mind. If on location, where will the client sit or stand? Where will the sun be at the time of the shoot? Do you have all your gear, including backup batteries, appropriate lenses, lighting, photo cards, and an extra camera? Is it all charged and ready to go? If necessary, draw sketches of what you have in mind for posing. Be sure to stake out the location ahead of time (as close to the actual session appointment as possible).
How could any studio shot be quite as memorable as Jamie Coonts’s capture amidst this dramatic corridor of fall foliage? There may be only a one-week window of opportunity to catch autumn leaves as awesome as these. (And you don’t want to schedule a session only to find that winter’s swift wind blew all the colorful leaves away.) The visual is, of course, thrilling—but memories connected with the entire experience will create pleasant recollections until it’s time for another family shoot next year!