New Month, New Method

Yesterday, I did my very first engagement photoshoot. I met a couple through my brother that was looking for photos they could use to send to their families. At first, I was almost too nervous to even consider something like this, there were way too many things that could have gone wrong. For example, I'm antisocial (talking, eew), I needed some equipment to control the lighting, this could make or break my freelancing career, shit like that.

So after a few beers and an unequal reciprocation of dialogue, I was told to put up, shut up, and take the pictures.

The couple decided that they wanted to do the photographs a month after out initial discussion. This spawned a rare and uncommon occurrence in my head; a thought. Why don't I spend the month practicing?

For the entire month of April, I took a photo each and every day. I made it an exercise to practice a specific aspect of photography (composition, exposure, depth of field, etc...) and to get damn good in order to prepare for the shoot. Everything worked out perfectly, but on April 29th, I went through each and every one of the photos and realized I missed one of the most important things a photographer must consider, lighting.

On the day of the shoot, April 30th, I made it a point to wake up extra early and rushed over to the local Wolf Camera store. There I found a 5-in-1 reflector sheet; this was exactly what I needed to make the engagement photos come to life.

I'm going over the photos and doing minor retouching right now, but as far as I can tell, the practice paid off exponentially. It's hard to believe that only a month ago, if I had done the shoot, they would not look anywhere near as professional/refined as the picture above. I also want to thank the couple in the picture for being so fun and spontaneous during the shoot, they were just as helpful as the camera itself.