sploppert wrote:
1, how to pose people so they look their best
2, find out who they are
3, able to get them to relax in front of a camera, if you don't all you'll get is a blank stare and a fake smile.
4, How do I take a good picture?
5, the answer is experience.
S, sorry, but I disagree. Too many are looking for a formula that will make their photography look like someone else's photography that they admire, and for many, THAT is the goal. Yes, blazing your own trail can be scary!
1, Is the goal always to make people look their best? Or produce good and unique work? I think this is where I get the lecture about what we get paid to shoot and make the customer happy. If one is GOOD, the customer will be happy!
2, We will NEVER know who our customers are unless we live with them or they are family. It's not necessary to know who they are to produce good work!
3, By design, all formal studio portraits are FAKE. No one live there or eats there or sleeps there. Our jobs are to take a sliver of time in a persons life outside of their life, that's why it's in a studio. Otherwise we should be taking environmental portraits in the subjects actual environment, not the studio.
4, Do you think Joey L ever asked how to take a good picture??? Good pics are taken by TALENTED photographers, They don't ask how to take pictures. OTHERS ask THEM, "how did you do that"! No amount of technical understanding of light or camera will replace TALENT. Talent is not trained into you, you have it or you don't. A very talented photographer will take better shots than almost any untalented photographer no matter how good that untalented photographer thinks they are. It's how the mind works.
5, The answer is not experience. As I already said, the answer is TALENT. But yes, a TALENTED photographer with experience only makes them better and better.
Don't confuse a guy with a set of lights and a stool in the middle of them with talent. It might be the way to make money and people might be happy, but again, don't confuse talent with salesmanship.
SS