Just got back from Sedona and doing a workshop for Arizona Prof. Photographers. Great group and lots of magnificent opportunities. A very enthusiastic group embraced light control, composition and a key which is the portrait "experience".
The experience you create as a portrait photographer goes well beyond the technical photographer. You are a director, producer, camera man, comedian, listener and the list goes on. When you combine all the above and more... the client experience and RESPECT for you grows and when that grows the perception of value grows and we all know what that means.
Speaking of the EXPERIENCE. these images are of Wendy Newman (Arizona Prof. Photog. assoc. President). She and her family are delightful we did have an experience. One has to make an effort and I just felt that the best camera angle was from the water. NO worries. I am often in the water so off I go. A little deeper, a little deeper. NO, had to go a little more and whoosh... the current took my feet out from under me. Managed to protect my Mk111 but everything else got soaked. But .. it was worth it. The image was taken with me up to my neck in the river. Quite an experience.
Technical... the natural light was amazing. It was just minutes before sunset and a light cloud cover in the west diffusing the direct sun. Exposure was ISO 100... 1/30@5.6. Camera was Canon 1Ds MK111 and lens was the 28-70. All tripod mounted. The images were brought into Lightroom for basic processing and then to PS for enhancement. The clouds were added in PS using a sweet technique of creating a channel mask and using a cloud image from my resources to "paste into" (under edit menu).
