Spanish Harlem – Diêlha

It’s been two months since moving to Austin, and I feel as if I’m not moving forward in my business. To be frank, there are extenuating factors, and the biggest one is that we’re currently a single income family. All extraneous spending is on hold. The cost to set up an LLC. was out of the budget.

I also felt as if things were stagnant in regards to Time for Print sessions.  I joined a couple of photography groups before leaving Arizona. I would respond to models’ requests for TFP sessions, but the majority of them opted to work with male photographers (see prior blog post).  I thought that I had a promising session with a model and his girlfriend.  However, when I asked for their email addresses for the contracts, he ghosted me.  No contract – no session.

I decided not to wallow in disappointment, and decided to create my own model call.  I was running errands a couple weeks ago, and Aretha Franklin’s version of “Spanish Harlem” started playing.  It was always one of my favorite songs.  I downloaded it last year after she passed away.  Listening to the lyrics, I knew that this was the theme for my session.  I was hoping for at least one model to be interested in my concept, and I ended up with 4!  I was thrilled.  One of the models is a fellow photography who offered to sit for me if no one else responded. Since I had four models, I decided to photograph all four of them in the same outfit.  I had two different locations, and knew that I would photograph two of them in the same location. 

My first model was Diêlha, and she was stunning! She was also a joy to photograph.  I love it when a model knows how to move, and knows his/her angles.  Diêlha did not disappoint.  She also brought her ideas and styling to the session.  I love this type of collaboration.

When I tell you that it was difficult to narrow down images for her gallery, trust me that it was a challenge.  If an image didn’t meet my standards, it was because the lighting wasn’t correct, or the crop was messed up.  What I am a particularly proud of with the session is that the lighting was exactly what I wanted.  My exposures where on point, and my concept came through just as I had in my mind.

We scheduled our session for Saturday morning. I still haven’t adjusted to this Texas humidity! The location that I selected had covered entry ways, and we managed to catch a few breezes. I used both ambient light and off-camera flash. The building also provided great fill light for the session

Look for the next blog post on my session with the second model.