514 - The Headquarters
7 models, 1 shoot. All in an abandoned slaughterhouse. Let me start from the beginning.
Now that I’ve been in Colorado for a minute, I decided to check in on the local photography scene. After a quick Facebook group search, a lil’ something called “Sunday Night Meets” popped up. Essentially the idea of this meetup group is that once a month photographers and models come together in Denver for one big collaboration.
It’s fueled by the idea of “time for prints,” which means that models get free photos of themselves, the photographers get free models to practice with and add to their portfolios. It’s a win-win for everyone.
So I set the date on my calendar, excited but withholding my expectations. Most of the time meetup groups like this are just 7 fat dudes trying to shoot one model who didn’t realize what she’d gotten into.
I showed up at 12PM sharp (yes, Sunday Night Meets takes place in the afternoon…) with a 24-70mm lens at my side. Over the course of the next hour, photographers and models slowly began to trickle in.
And damn. This session was legit. More than a dozen models pulled through, and I was able to get a ton of killer shots roaming around this place.
Let’s start from the top. Since I had so many good shots, I decided to narrow it down to my top 7 choices to keep this post within reason. I picked the best shot from each model that I worked with.
The first photo was taken down in the basement. And like I said, this place was lit like a goddamn dream. I set up this shot so the lighting structure and pipes had a nice leading line to her positioning:
And a little footnote before we get deeper in these portraits. The biggest thing I learned from this shoot was faking confidence with my positioning. The past couple years the only portraits I’ve ever done were with Haley, and we both knew what we wanted so positioning was easy.
This shoot I was working with people I’d met 5 minutes ago, so acting like I knew what I was doing was the only way to make this work without it getting awkward. Pretend to know your shit!
The next shot I decided to use a nice window as a framing element. I particularly enjoyed the way the light was hitting her face from the side, which is another popular method of lighting:
This next shot I decided to use this dusty glass window to make it interesting. One fun thing to keep in mind with portraits is that you can always move things to your liking to make shots more creative.
Initially I tried placing the glass window in front of her, but I couldn’t find an angle that made her face look good.. So instead, I decided to position the glass material in front of the window (the primary light source) to get some strange light refractions from it. It also softened the light on her face, which made the image more “gentle.” Always aim for soft light on the face:
The next shot I got was probably the least “artsy” shot I got, but I figured I should get at least one old school portrait shot:
Definitely not my favorite shot. I love shots that contain some type of creative mood to them- not shots that rely simply on the model looking good.
This was more like a high school senior picture that happened to be in an abandoned building. But whatever. She liked it.
Next up! Back into the artsy vibes. Believe it or not this next photo is actually the same model that was two photos back, except she brought a change of clothes.
Essentially I found this major light beam coming from the ceiling and put her in front of it. Then darkened everything else in post to make it more dramatic:
Now we get into one of my favorite shots from the shoot. So this idea was actually the models, I can’t take credit for it. But I can take credit for how fucking dope it turned out.
Essentially he threw the playing cards in the air, alongside another assistant on the sidelines that threw even more cards for dramatic effect. He leaned back on an invisible wooden stool, that I edited out in Photoshop.
To get the shot, I put the camera on burst mode at 1/1250s, and focused on him. After 2-3 takes, I finally got an image with enough dimension to work:
Damn that shot is sick. It should also be noted that in the editing process, I had to dodge (brighten) all of the playing cards individually, as they weren’t strictly in the narrow beam of light that he was positioned in. But it was worth the effort.
Alright! And for the final shot, I positioned another model that showed up late in this mini light beam, and had her lean off this makeshift fence we found. Easy enough:
And that’s that! My top shots from the shoot.
Overall, I’d highly recommend doing these types of meetups if you can find them in your city. It’s a great way to network and build your portfolio. By the end of this session I essentially have an entire mini gallery I can put on my website to show off my portrait shots for anyone interested.
All in a day's work.
Oh, and one more bonus is that if your shots are good, the models will very often share them on Instagram and tag your profile as the photographer. This is a great way to get your name out there if you’re trying to get eyes on your work!
Anyway. That was fun.
I’ll give you a little update on my situation, seeing as I haven’t posted in over a month. I FINISHED the editing part of the photography course I’m designing, which contains 40 videos detailing my Photoshop workflow from start to finish. I’m super proud of it. It’s way better than anything on the market. And believe me, I’ve done my research.
However I haven’t had time to shoot these adventures, even though I’m dying to. The course is taking up too much time. But right now it’s what I need to do.
Tomorrow I’m about to drive to California (where it’s warm, Colorado is now cold as fuck) to finish the second half of the photography course, topping it off at 100 total videos, 15+ hours of instruction. I’m ridiculously excited.
The goal is to be finished by New Years, at which point I will be shooting, traveling, and posting regularly again. I’ll try to squeeze a few Cali adventures in before New Years if I can find time.
See you… sometime soon. Good things are coming!
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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