A New Approach to Sessions

Two weeks ago, I signed up for a class taught by Jasmine Jade for Clickin Moms.  The name of the class was “Her Empowering Journey”.  I was drawn to the class because of its name.  Over the last several months, I’ve come to realize that my niche is photographing women, and celebrating their individuality.   When I read the class description, I felt that it would help elevate my sessions, and improve my direction to clients for posing.    During the first week of the class, we had a photo assignment to implement what was taught.  I scheduled a Time for Print Session for the weekend of October 24.  I used a dress from my stash, and ordered a slip for the model to wear underneath it.  It was perfect, and I knew that I wanted to conduct the session at Brushy Creek Lake Park.  Although I normally use OCF, I wanted to use natural light.  The first reason was because Jasmine doesn’t use it for her sessions.  Secondly, I wanted to travel light. Thirdly, I’m trying to become more comfortable using available light for portraits.  Lastly, I wanted a softer feel to the images.

The session was set for 8:00 AM on that Saturday, and it was so cold!  The weather leading up to the weekend was beautiful.  I decided to go with two dresses instead of one, and both of them were sheer.  Model, Linh, was a trooper!  She said it wasn’t too cold for her because she was from back east, and lived in colder weather.  

The day was overcast, and provided beautiful even light.  Since it was cold, I started with the prompt of Linh giving herself a big hug.  From there, I told her to slowly run her arms down her arms, and then to look at the camera.  I had Linh close her eyes, and lift her head up towards the skin.  Oh, my word!  I was so pleased with the images that I saw on the back of my camera!  We continued shooting in different areas of the park. I had Linh change to the second dress, and gave her the same props.  I had her walk slowly towards me, play with her hair, and again look up at the sky with her eyes closed.  In Jasmine’s class, she said that catching the in-between moments and natural movements of the client were key.  I made sure that I was aware, and tried to capture those times as well.

When I got home and dumped the cards, I didn’t realize that I had taken so many frames!  I’m normally an intentional shooter because I know what I want.  A couple of times during the session, I was shooting on Continuous mode, and this added to the frame count.  Going forward, I will try to return back to my way of shooting, but still implement what I learned from the class.