Photography may be a form of art and many think the hardest part is taking the image based on composition, lighting and other photographic terms. Well, this may be true but when you start capturing images of people then in all honesty I believe that getting the feeling and emotion portrayed but the subject is slightly more difficult than camera knowledge. Having the personality to capture an image of a person is extremely important in the field of portrait photography. If you are a rude and unsettling person then your subject may never be able to connect with you and thus not be able to connect with your image. If you’re not a people person then break the ice now and begin to explore how to make people comfortable and excited to work with you. In the end this will help you leaps and bounds when it comes to capturing people with your giant scary camera pointed right at them 
The other day was somewhat like any other, wake up late, have almost nothing for breakfast and scurry off to the studio to get my gear packed for a model shoot. This time was slightly different in the fact I had two models, one male and one female, not my normal thing. The gorgeous and talented Talena responded very positively to some images I had taken of Miss Elise the other day and I had to chime in with the usual, “umm come shoot with us please,” response. Talena and I chatted it up and quickly got her down here from just outside chicago for a shoot, but she wanted to bring a “prop” who we now know as Marc.
The three of us went out hit our first location by first sweeping away all the scary spiders and icky cobwebs. I, personally, am not a fan of spiders and feel they are gross and should stay far away from me. After destroying the evil menace we hit the ground running with Talena and Marc posing together and really working the camera. The two had a chemistry together and 85% they were serious and worked the camera and the other 15% was full of amazing nonsense and complete fun. It’s extremely important to keep things up beat and I never let people stay too serious for too long or the shoot starts to get stale and it’s too much business vs. the better option, pleasure.
We had also planned to take a trip to a second location, the same location I had recently worked with Elise at, but unfortunately there were cops patrolling the grounds as well as one parked out front, so no beau-no. Using my other worldly powers I conjured up a a location I’ve known about for a year but had been saving for the right occasion. Not sure if this was the proper time to use it, but hell it still friggin’ rocked!
The backup location consisted of about 300-400 feet of underground service tunnel slash drainage. The walls were completely covered in graffiti from start to finish and every 30 feet or so was a wonderful opening from above in the form of a rusty metal grate with plenty of holes in it. The color of light wasn’t the best but you make due with what you have and the inch two 4 inch high water made it pointless to carry tons of gear in there.
After all is said and done I’m excited about the imagery we took and Talena and Marc are both amazing models individually and yet truly shine when they work as a team. I am thankful to have met them and will definitely have to kidnap them for future projects! I know that if I find something involving mud I’ll be hearing from Talena.