First studio photoshoot - with Kieran Carr and Ashes Phoenix

I feel very grateful to have in my life friends who wants to help me to try new stuffs.

I never took pictures in a studio before. I had tried a couple of times to do staged portraits outside, but never inside. I wanted to try that.

So I rented a studio at MoveSpace, Auckland, and I asked Kieran Carr and Ashes Phoenix to hang out with me in the room to practice and feel more confident.

The idea was to have a good time, try out the space, use the lights… Absolutely no pressure for them to pose and for me to make good pictures. We wanted to play in the space, like kids would do.

I am so happy about the time we had together and I am very proud of the pictures I took.

We tried a lot of different things: one person, two people, a 50mm lens, a wide angle lens, with a stool, on the floor, standing up, candid picture, more staged, close-up, full body, from different angles…

We finished with the idea to do more classical portrait which Kieran and Ashes could use in the standup comedy scene, to use when they need a picture of themsleves on posters, either when it’s a line-up or to see what could be done for a solo show.

I feel so much more confident now that I have tried out the space, use the lights for the first time and gave directions to people to help them pose.

What I learn from this session is that it is way easier to do a photoshoot in a studio than outside because there is more control, nobody can enter the shoot without you noticing, there is less clutter in the picture compared to outside, and the models probably find it less intimidating because nobody can see them. I also notice it was very good to have two persons in the studio, even when only one model was in front of the camera, because the two people could talk and interact, giving me more candid expressions, without having to handle the shooting and the conversation at the same time.

I’m very happy and proud of this session and I can see I’m getting better every time I’m trying something new with my camera.

I think the next step in terms of studio photography would be to play more with the lights, have a direction for the next session, and go deeper into this wide angle esthetic.