Preparing for Your Student Photo Session

Prep

Things for you the model to think about.  We will talk about these things and more in your pre-shoot interview.

  • What background do you want?

  • Angles

  • Poses to try

  • Clothing, multiple changes, casual & formal.  Accessories?

  • On location?  Where at?

  • Make-up

  • Hair

  • Bring an assistant.  I suggest that you bring a friend to help and we can takes some pictures of the two of you while we are at it.  This person is another set of eyes, a person to bounce ideas off of, friend, personal consultant.  This person also provides help with  make-up, hair, clothing and changes, and may be needed to assist the photographer to hold stuff.

  • Are there any defining location, hobbies, activities or sports that you want to associate?  How about musical instrument or other prop?

  • Set aside enough time for setup, changes, travel to be an enjoyable and low stress time.

  • Ask questions

  • What is the deadline for your school?  You can't be late, no exceptions.  If you want to use your Camera Ninja image, you should submit early in case there is a problem.

  • What is the format that the school wants?

  • What is your school dress code?  Many schools enforce this dress code for their year book photos.

  • What don't you want?  Anything that bugs you or you are afraid might happen?

  • What kind of music do you like?  Let's bring my iPod boom box or yours and have some fun.


Poses


This is a time to have fun and explore all of your expressions.


What you are thinking about and how you are feeling come through in your photos!!


  • Try tilt head back with various camera angles.

  • Prone on bench or rock

  • Toward and away from camera

  • Be honestly natural

  • Gaze down or away

  • Try something new?

  • Ask questions

  • Formal, informal


Pose Examples


What to expect

  • It should be fun and stress free.  If it isn't we are doing something wrong.

  • We can do lots of different poses.

  • Lots of angles

  • We may take a lot of pictures to catch different expressions

  • We may take a lot of photos to capture different lighting applications

  • We may take a lot of photos to explore different depths of field (where does focus start, end and pull the eye)

  • Explore different clothing or accessory changes.

  • Try black and white.

  • In post-production we can fix or change photos, add captions, crop and do multi-image compositions.

  • For location photography, weather conditions can change. In San Diego, they change fast.  Clouds spoil a sunset on the beach so be prepared.  Sunrise or sunset provide excellent light but you have to move fast.  High clouds during the day provides excellent even and soft light for our portraits.

  • Prints?

  • Lots of fun

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