Sarah | Studio Session

This was Sarah’s fourth session with us! Here is what she had to say about her experience so far:

If you “always” wanted to do a session, but you’ve been scared, this is the best advice I can give you. I did my first session in May of 2021. Friday, I will be doing my fourth. I may or may not be addicted. I have my prints on my bedroom wall and in frames on my dresser. I’m not conceited, I just love the work Jamie and Raul and their hair and make up stylists do! It does not matter if you’re a size 0 or 30, you owe it to yourself to do this! Invest in yourself!

We loved investing in Sarah’s life and in the lives of the other women who have trusted us for their intimate portraits regardless of their body type, age, or whatever else is going on in their lives.

As you can see in the image below, she brings the party with her to each of her sessions! In this shot, Sarah is working the stripper pole that we had professionally installed in our studio.

I often ask clients to describe the “look” they want themselves to have in their images. The two most popular looks are fun and sultry. Often, these can happen within seconds of each other. Sarah plays both roles well, and we often get shots of her freestyle dancing during her sessions!

We should use our beads more often. These are clear beads that I’ve attached to a pole that I suspend to the ceiling. I use a gel (a sheet of colored plastic) attached to the light shining on the beads to turn the beads the color we want.

We did some shots on a grey backdrop to create a stronger fashion feel to some of her images.

I paint with both light…and shadow. The more shadow we bring to the party, the more dramatic the effect. 

We have a wonderful queen sized bed in our studio. It’s really soft…probably too soft…but clients will feel the comforting embrace of the plush top layer. Besides the predictable shots we take on the bed, there are countless ways to pose people around the bed. This is one of those other shots. The background behind Sarah is usually hidden behind curtains that are hidden behind the headboard, but we pushed the bed to the side to get this shot. We should use this elegant background more often.

Photographer’s Notes:

1. The most difficult part of shooting through the beads is getting the person in sharp focus because the camera wants to focus on the beads and not the person. To solve this problem, I use manual focus. I also put my camera on a tripod. Then, with my camera on the tripod, I dial in the manual focus. For these shots, I almost always use my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens set at f/2.8 for the aperture, so my depth of field (the part of the photo in focus) is very narrow, especially on a full-frame camera.
2. On some of these shots, the candles are brighter. On those shots, I placed my camera on a tripod and used a slower shutter speed that allowed the camera to soak in the light from the candles. To make the candles really pop without putting too much light on the client, I’ll turn off the modeling light on my Godox flashes. I also make sure I don’t have too much ambient light coming from an open window or door in the studio.