thenamelessone

October 18

Today I was gonna have two photoshoots. The first one with three girls, which I’ve never done before. But they didn’t come, and didn’t tell me beforehand, they only sent a message minutes after we were supposed to meet, with a rather weak excuse. They probably just changed their minds. This happens sometimes unfortunatelly. I didn’t mind it much, not much harm done, I just wasted some time, but I waste a lot of time daily anyway doing nothing. I’ve never had a photoshoot with these girls before, I don’t know them, and I wont try to meet with them again.

The next shoot was with two girls that I shot before a few times, Amber and Mia. I’ve known Mia first, and after our first shoot she asked if she can bring her friend to the next, and I’ve had two shoots since with the two of them. But I only ever like Mia’s pictures. Amber is pretty too, but something else is missing, I’m not sure what it is. And it feels like she doesn’t really enjoy or want to model. But Mia always asks to bring her, and I don’t mind. I always set up the shoots with Mia, but it’s not easy with her. She often takes long to reply, sometimes days, and often moves the date. It took one or two months to set up this shoot. Both Amber and Mia are nice and friendly in person, but I can’t really connect with them, usually we don’t talk much, and this time wasn’t different. This was a TFCD shoot, meaning non of us paid the other, we did it for the pictures.

This shoot was a bit different from what I usually do, I tried out a new thing. Usually we meet somewhere outdoors, and walk around in an area, stopping at different places, making photos. This involves a fair bit of improvising, which I like. Even if I shoot multiple times in the same area, we stop at different places, use different angles and poses, and I don’t plan these ahead exactly. I don’t use any flash, I don’t like the too direct, harsh light. I don’t like if it’s too noticeable that the light is artificial. Creating softer, more natural light would require a large diffuser, and this style of photoshoot is not compatible with that, I can’t carry a lightstand around, and it would slow everything down too much.

This time I also shot outdoors, but I used a flash with a light stand and a big diffuser, and it’s a completely different style of photoshoot. It takes time and effort to set up the lighting, and if I want to move a bit or shoot from a different angle, I also have to move the flash. This means I used fewer locations and angles, so the pictures are less varied and there are fewer of them, but hopefully they are better than usual because of the better lighting. The fewer locations, angles and poses also mean that those had to be as good as possible, so I had to plan out everything ahead of time exactly. I’ve wanted to try a shoot like this for a while, but there’s a reason I did it only now, I only recently found a location good enough to worth the effort. It’s at the park near the stadium, I had a few photoshoots there recently. This style of photoshoot also requires an experienced model, so Mia was good for this.

I planned three locations. The first was just a quick stop to warm up, and I don’t expect the photos to be too good. The second stop was longer, and I think the photos turned out pretty good, just as I expected. I saved the best location for last. I discovered it when I was there with Poppy, and I instantly fell in love with it. The background is amazing and the local topography provides a unique perspective. It’s the best location I’ve ever seen. We made a few photos there with Poppy, and the lighting was perfect at the time, but the poses didn’t turn out the best. They are good pictures, but not my best. (The other pictures from that shoot with Poppy however are some of my best ever.) I knew back then that I could make much better photos at that place, so good that they would be my best and most unique photos ever. I want to make the best possible portraits there. This inspired me to do today’s shoot.

Well, I don’t think I succeeded today either. I don’t have much experience working with a flash, and now that I look at the pictures at home, I think the lighting wasn’t the best. But I think I can make it better if I try some other time. The other problem was that Mia didn’t like the location and the poses I planned, so we didn’t make many photos there. I don’t blame her, I can understand if she’s not comfortable with every pose. She was just not the suitable model for what I planned.

Although I didn’t succeed in my ultimate goal of making the best possible picture there, I’m not disappointed. I expected this, this was more of a practice for me, I haven’t done this style of shoot before. And we definitely made some pretty good pictures. I will only know for sure how good, when I edit them, but they look good so far. I’m curious how they will compare to my usual photos. And after today, I’m more positive that the pictures I planned at that good place are possible. I just need to improve the lighting, I need more practice. And I have to find the perfect model for it. I photographed many beautiful girls that I liked working with and I love the pictures that I took of them, but I don’t feel like any of them is the perfect model for this particular shoot. I’ll have to find someone new, and that takes time, which means I’ll probably have to postpone this project for next year. In a few days it will be too cold, and the place will probably look different when the leaves fall. This is pretty frustrating, I want to make this picture that’s in my head so badly.