This year has undoubtedly been a slow year for me photography wise, in fact I have never had so much time to work on a computer or make the web updates I should but ultimately don’t. All my major events were canceled and the majority of my photo shoots, so I usually get excited for what I do have, tagging along to a horse show with my sister or shooting some portraits for a friend.
Around mid-august I got to do some portraiture for a client and her horses that hopefully the start and will follow up with some fall images. It has been so long since I have been out with the camera and did portrait shooting that I did make mistakes. And guys the way I shoot I didn’t catch them.
I trust myself and find checking the back of the camera constantly to be distracting and unprofessional as well as time consuming. So I generally do a few test shots and move on with the session. However sometimes I unknowingly bump my settings and that will throw everything out of whack, a lot of times I will catch it and then times like that session I will not. This is when post-production, editing, and the medium you shoot so JPEG, TIFF, RAW comes in super handy.
I shoot RAW for the amount of information captured and the deeper ability to edit without super compromising the data. My settings were bumped and I was underexposing the images but I was able to save every image I fudged up in post-processing. That didn’t mean I wasn’t mad at myself or disappointed in what I did, I expect a lot of myself and after months of not shooting I was mad and sad I mad such a dumb mistake.
But it happens to professionals to people just learning. Months of barely touching a camera means I was a little rusty, photography is a more than a talent it is skill and education with equipment. An Ability to read lighting and create masterful content in harsh conditions. I knew all of this and yet I was mad at myself because I wouldn’t have been rusty if I had gone out and shot anything during lockdown but I was struggling with the repercussion to my business and the instability of my future.
So it happens, we all have rough times, just get out there and keep shooting, keep practicing and hopefully everything works out for the best. Check out the images from my august portrait session.
