This past week has been really fun and relaxing and also super helpful in terms of learning more about photography. A few days ago, I dragged my sister out of the house so I could take some pictures of her and play around a little more with my settings. I got some pretty nice shots but I noticed they didn’t really have much depth to them. Though the background was somewhat blurred, the pictures still looked flat. I knew this was probably because of my not so great lens, but I wasn’t sure what new lens to buy so I decided to just wait to ask my mentor about it.
Today, my mentor brought me along to one of his shoots on the east side. He was hired to take pictures of his old church since they’re leasing the space, and he thought it’d be a good idea for me to learn about some lighting techniques. I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure if it was going to be super formal and professional since we were going to be in a church, but when I got there, the first thing he said was “So I didn’t exactly tell them that you’re coming…but it should be fine”. I freaked out for a second but he set a pretty chill tone with that statement, so I survived through the shoot. The whole thing was pretty chill and relaxing. First, I helped him set up his lighting equipment and we took pictures of one of the reception rooms in the church. We went to a few different rooms to take pictures, but my favorite room was probably the second room which was lit up with draping lights and had really nice wooden floors. Throughout the shoot I learned more about how to adjust the settings based on the lighting in each of the rooms, and what the best angles were for the pictures.
After the shoot we headed to a Starbucks close-by to look at the pictures and talk about editing. He showed me the before and after editing of some of the pictures he had taken in the past, which really helped me understand how to make the pictures look more lively and vibrant. I asked him some questions about portrait photography in particular, and how to make the pictures have a little more depth than the pictures I had been taking. He advised me to buy a 50 mm lens from Pro Photo Supply in Northwest Portland, because it would give me a wider aperture which would give my pictures a little more depth. Tomorrow I’m going to be heading down to Pro Photo Supply to get my lens and I’m super excited to try it out later in the day. Over the weekend, I’m going to be doing a few more shoots with some friends with my 50 mm lens, and I’ll be going over more editing techniques for those pictures with Dan early next week.
Our talk at Starbucks was really helpful, and I am really happy that I was able to tag along to his church shoot today. Below are some pictures that we took at the shoot (I don’t have pictures of the room with the draped lights yet, but I’ll put them in once I get them).
