Farewell

At the risk of being too transparent, I want to talk about shoot prep. I have a lot of Photographer friends out there, so if you are reading this, please weigh in. In the age of social media, I find myself using Facebook a lot. If you write me an email to book a session and I don't know who you are, the first thing I will do is look you up on Facebook. I know that sounds a little creepy and stalkerish, but it's the truth.

As a photographer, I am dealing with visual media and the more I can see before a shoot, the more I can plan. With this shoot, I Facebooked my Client and guess what, she didn't have Facebook! I couldn't find her anywhere. I swear to you, I assumed it was a Spam email. After one response from her, I realized that I was ridiculous and she was, in fact, a real person. With the booking confirmed, I took the information that I had - age of the child, client comments, etc. and started planning my shots. With an in-home session, where you don't know what the people look like or what their apartment looks like or what the light situation will be when you get there, you don't have much to work with ahead of time. On the flip side, If I have a lot of information before a shoot, I will go as far as sketching out thumbnails of everything I want to capture. It may be redundant, but it helps me focus.

Anyway, there I was standing at the front door of this clients apartment waiting for her to open the door and I suddenly felt like I was on a game show. "Tell her what's behind door number one BOB!" 

See for yourself; JACKPOT.