As a semi professional photographer aspiring to become professional (as in acting professional too) there are lots of things I need to learn if I want to make a good impression. It’s not only important to make an impression with the final image but with the way I work as well. In this post I thought I would share my shoot prep! From having already done a number of shoots I have learned that preparing the set-up beforehand is important, even if you are shooting without lighting equipment.

For the location we will be using our property seeing that there are attractive areas suitable for what the client and I envision (I had planned to use someone else’s property but that fell through). As I only currently use natural lighting to light my images I have planned to do our shoot early in the morning while the sun is low. A couple reasons: the light is less harsh than that at noon day and is more attractive, and because it gets very hot quickly.

I have learned that it is always a good idea to scout the area beforehand to familiarise myself with it (even when I think I know the surroundings). This morning (at the time that I will shoot on the shoot day), I walked around the property with my camera looking for ideal spots with nice lighting. Because doing this will save me time on the shoot day. Like a lot.

And because what I sometimes see with my eyes (or what I envision in my head) doesn’t always transfer well once I get behind the camera. For example I know I want to position the client by the side of the pool but once I get behind the eyepiece of my camera and imagine the client there posing, the composition doesn’t quite work as well.

So this is when getting behind the camera is needed; doing it until I find a position I like (which I don’t want to be doing on the day of the shoot because I’ll be wasting the client’s time).

I don’t have a light meter so besides making a note of the places I want to shoot, I also note the settings on my camera for wide angle shots with wide depth of field (getting everything in the image) and narrow depth of field shots (limiting what I want in the shot and blurring out everything else).

I also think about items I may need to help me get the shot. A ladder for when I need to look down on the model from high up, or a pillow for me to lay on for ground level shots (I got that idea from watching Tyra Banks doing a shoot on ANTM).