There is nothing I like more than working with a young adult and making them realise they too are just as beautiful as the models that appear in magazines. Having access to a professional photographer who knows how to light and pose can make all the difference when it comes to liking yourself in pictures.
In this case this young lady wasn't keen on being photographed. Its not something she particularly enjoyed and certainly didn't look forward to. In fact I had to convince her to trust me. As with so many people, she wasn't all that thrilled to have to see herself in pictures. The more I work with adults both young and not so young the more I'm finding that not many like seeing themselves in pictures. I myself being one of them.
I'll admit, photographing professional models is easier. Not because they are more beautiful but because they have a skill. They know how to pose for the camera. And probably more important than that is they are comfortable in front of the camera. I will often take the first couple of images of a subject (a non model) and think 'how can I make this person love their portraits when what I'm getting looks very uncomfortable?'
And thats just it and what I'd like everyone considering having a shoot to understand, the initial images hardly ever look right. Anyone sitting in front of a camera like this for the first time is going to be uncomfortable and that will always show in the portraits. But in every shoot I've ever done, once we get into it this changes and the portraits evolve into beautiful finished pieces. I don't think I've ever got a great portrait from the first 5 or so images I've taken in a shoot.
And this is exactly what happened with this young lady. But by the end of the session she was a different person altogether. She started to anticipate what I wanted and I could actually see her body begin to relax. And with that came the natural smiles. She could now smile because she was more comfortable being there with me. By the end of the shoot I found it difficult to stop because I was getting so much usable work. I could have just kept going. I only finished when I did because she had somewhere else to be.
Unfortunately I cannot show you many of my favourite images from this session just yet and that is because we used her prom dress for this shoot. I don't think its fair to show the images for this until after she has worn the dress to prom. But trust me, she is gorgeous in her prom dress and I can't wait to share them. So I will be sharing these portraits but not until after the big day which is at the end of June.
Which brings me to my next point. I love the idea of doing prom photos but I don't mean on the night of their actual prom, although I am now booked to do those as well this year
(blog on this coming soon!). What I mean here is I want to carefully create proper portraits of young ladies (or young men for that matter) in their attire prior to their prom when they have all the time in the world for me to work with them and do it properly. Its common for people to have hair trials before the big day so why not take that opportunity to arrange a portrait session. I've done this before in the past and its something I've always wanted to encourage but until now hadn't gotten around to. I will still be creating high quality portraits on the night of the prom for Hastings High School this year however these will be a lot more rushed and limited in posing possibilities than what I can provide in a private studio portrait session .
So what I would like to offer to get the ball rolling is this. For the first 3 people to book a prom session I will do the session for free and include £75 credit towards the final order. We have gorgeous print boxes that can include the digital files as well.
(Click here to see our blog post with our new products.) It is a great opportunity to capture a special time in your growing child's life. And I have no doubt that they will be thrilled to have amazing portraits to share on their social media.
If interested please contact us via our website
here or send us an email to christina@christinalauderpotraits.com and we'll send you our current price list so you can see all we have to offer.
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