Commercial Photography Project with Models

Commercial and Advertising Photoshoots projects with models is my favourite photography work.

I really enjoy organizing the whole package. From contacting models, working with the client, to pulling the whole project together. This isn't easy especially if the client is on a budget and the models are freelancers. The reason is because they tend to either lack experience, can't pose or are not as professional. However, once in a while, you do get some models who are good.

I've shot Ashton (shown here on the right) a few times before and she is very professional, beautiful and poses well. Here, she is backlighted with a blue-green gel that enhances the imagery with a beautiful aura of "intelligence" if you will.

Lighting is very important. When the space for the shoot is large, the lights will need to be ultra powerful. You'll need at least a 1200 True Ws lights, preferably, something even more powerful, such as a 2400 True Ws lights. This is due to the inverse square law for light where the light falloff is rapid. If you are using medium or large format, your light usage will be even worse. Just be sure not to break the circuits too often. ;-)

On top of that, your lighting pack needs to be flexible enough to go into low power without changing its light temperature as much. I know for a fact (Yep, I personally tested them) that just about all monoblocks lights have a horrible shift of color temperature (300 to over 1,000 Kelvins) between max and min power. You probably don't care about such shifts if you are doing casual fun photography but it can be incredibly frustrating if you care a lot about the colors, for fashion or product photography. Imagine shooting a white product on white background and you see a yellow-orange tint on one side of the product and bluish cast on the other. Yuck!

Back to the point, lower power is needed to enable shots such as those on the left where the screen of the monitor's glow is important to be captured while you still want some lights to illuminate the background and fill the shadows.

- MS

Strength in Diversity

By now, you probably think I'm a nutty professional photographer, dipping my toes into such a wide variety of subjects, from product photography to food photography to fashion photography to glamour photography to landscape photography and fine art photography to gosh, portrait photography, wedding photography and what else, commercial photography. On top of all that, I'm also well versed with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Website Design!!. Still think I'm sane?! I think not. While 90% of professional photographers out there strive to specialize in one field of photography, I spread my wings and claim strength in all. Is my brain really that slow? Contrary to what you might think, I have good explanations on what I've done thus far.

1. Mastering different facets of photography has allowed me to apply my knowledge in one to another. For example, if I were to shoot an engagement session at a seemingly boring golf course, I can utilize my knowledge as a landscape photographer for composition; my discipline in fashion and glamour photography to pose my subject beautifully; my in depth experience with studio lighting to use bounce multiple light sources to the subjects to create a wonderful interplay of light and shadow.
2. It keeps me excited as a photographer and continually challenge my ability to improve. It is much more often to hear of, say a specialized wedding photographer to get bored of his craft due to lack of innovation, creativity and exciting work. He/She will tend to do the same style over and over again with overall little improvements. For me, however, I am never bored since I have been peaking my performance by learning everything I know from one area of photography to the next. What I thought about in one area of photography has constantly been applied to another.

However, in spite of the above, most clients tend to think of a photographer is best when he or she is specialized. Just think, a bride probably will be more apt to choose a photographer who is specialized in weddings versus one who does everything. How do you, as a photographer prove otherwise? Show them your portfolio. The images needs to speak and they will, if you are good.

- MS