Moved to a different blog

Hi guys

This is just a short post to let you all know that from now on all my photography related work will be posted on this blog.
It has been my main blog since I came to blogger and now I've decided to restrict myself to just the one blog. It'll be easier for me and hopefully also for you, my dear readers, to keep track of everything, so I hope you'll welcome the change and follow me over here if you haven't already.

If you're not interested in anything but my photography posts, I've made it easy for you by adding a link at the top of the page to all my photography related posts.

All my previous entries (and all of your comments) have already been imported over on the "new" blog.

Thanks for reading :)

Shoot: Hunter Loli (for Starlight Magazine)

My plan was to not participate in the latest issue of Starlight Magazine. I wanted to take some time off and do some other things. But somehow I ended up doing both the Harry Potter photos and this shoot along with a couple of articles anyway. So much for not participating, huh.

Well, this shoot wasn't really on the schedule until the last minute, when Tenna and I decided to throw something together. As mentioned in my last entry, the theme was "Nerdy Lolita" and so when I had already shown the nerdy Harry Potter stuff, we decided to show off some of Tenna's Supernatural nerdery.
Tenna put together her own outfit and rather than basing it off one of the characters which, and let me just be honest here, we both thought about for a while, she decided to translate the whole "Hunter" concept to Lolita. I love this Sweet punky look she came up with :D

We invited Stine along for some Sammifer goodness, hehe *grins* and Cecil lead the way to this cool location and also helped with the carrying and reflector holding which was much appreciated :D

Onwards to the photos:

So besides it being freezing outside and my forgetting some of my equiptment (seriously, how stupid can you get?), we got some shots and afterwards we went to a coffeshop to enjoy some tasty hot chocolate and cake and also to reheat our limbs :/

Check out the latest issue of Starlight here.

Shoots: Selfportraits - Harry Potter (for Starlight Magazine)

The newest issue of Starlight Magazine is out and the theme was to show off the nerdy sides that many Lolitas have. I did a feature on my interest in Harry Potter. Check out the magazine here.

Selfportrait: Curiosities

Passing a Sunday afternoon by doing a selfportrait I've been wanting to do for a couple of weeks, but have had to put off, because of work and and a stupid corneal abrasion. 

To those of you who don't know, I'm a big Harry Potter fan and that's a movie replica of Prof. Snape's wand in my hand. The fairy dust was one of my Christmas gifts from Tenna. 

This second version was actually the first edit, before I decided to change it up a bit. I've been editing my photos in the same routine for a really long time and felt like mixing it up a bit, hence the first ones being all colour explosion ;)

I acutally hate doing selfportraits most of the time. Obviously, it's a lot more difficult getting the right shot, when you're not seeing what you're shooting when you're shooting it. It helps with the camera being tethered to the computer, but it's still tricky to get everything right. Alas, they are necessary to test light setups and new ideas. So while I'm not a big fan of them, one of my goals this year is to try to do more selfportraits, so I can get some practice, because on the plus side, they require much less planning than a model shoot (but I still want to do more of those as well, hehe, so altogether, more shoots need to happen ;)).

Choosing photos for your portfolio

I recently had some new prints made to update my portfolio. I haven’t added new photos to it since around April or May, so I thought it was time to get some new stuff in there.

The two first rows are my old portfolio. The two bottom rows are the photos I just had printed.

I put together a few tips for those of you who're updating your ports soon:

What to look for in your photos?

- Variety
You need to know your client. When you know whose attention you’re trying to get, choose your work based on that. If you’re looking to get into the fashion industry, choose only your best fashion photos, but show variety in terms of style. You don’t want them to think that you’re only capable of doing one type of work. Expand your range and more options will open up.
- Technical abilities
You want to show off your best craftsmanship, so choose photos that show your skill in terms of lighting and composition, but remember that you’ll also want to show that you’re capable of making your models look good, so people will know that you’re able to make a connection with whom you’re working and are able to instruct the person in front of your camera.

Newest work vs. older stuff?
Say you’re going through a creativity block and your newer stuff just doesn’t look as good as some of your older work, what should you choose to show in your port? You have to find that balance between showing your best work while keeping it current. So choose your best photos, but have a few recent photos also be part of your portfolio.

How many photos should you choose?
Only your absolute best! Remember your want your portfolio to reflect quality over quantity, so I would say somewhere between 10-20 photos.

Remember to be critical of your own work. You can still appreciate and love what you’ve done, but recognize where you need to improve to become a better photographer.

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These are the photos I chose for my portfolio. Notice only one of my older photos made the cut, while I love all the other photos too, quality-wise the ones I ended up choosing were just better.

Personally, I find that few pieces in my collection are full body photos and I want change that. Portraits and photos of which the focus is the expression of the model are I what really love to do, but when I look at artists whose work I admire, I find myself wanting to do more shoots where the focus is the full body pose and the given surroundings. Also I want to work on my light setups, both in the studio as well as on location. When I brought my softbox with me on the Snow White shoot, I found that it created more options.

So I guess I have my work cut out for me, hehe.

On another, but related note, I just got a new camera which I'm really excited about, naturally, but I'll talk more about that once I've had time to do a test shoot with it :D