Feel The Fear, Do it Anyway

I wish u would talk less and showed us some more Photoshop, that’s why i’m here!

Good Stuff Aaron. You’re a good guy.

Thank you for this episode, Aaron! It was really important for me to hear, that I am not the only one living with my fears and fighting them, especially in the beginning of my way to become a professional photographer.
So as for my challenges. One fear I overcame a week ago, before this episode came up. But I consider it to be a big one – I finally organized my own photo shoot on the beach with 2 models. I’ve never done it before. I was sooo afraid, that I wouldn’t find a nice place to shoot, that I wouldn’t know what to tell them and how to make them relax and pose (they were not professionals) and etc. There were so mane cons on the way, and I almost gave up on the shoot. But when the day came, I put myself together, and said to myself, that it wouldn’t kill me if I try. So I went, and everything turned out to be fun. We had a great time, and images are great.
Then I was inspired by your episode and contacted one local photographer and asked her, if she could take me with her on a wedding. It was always my fear to participate in such a shoot, where there are a lot of people. I had no idea how to organize them, what to say, what lenses to use and so on. The photographer agreed to help me and we spent the whole day (actually almost 16 hours) taking pictures. It was unbelievably hard, but it was worth it.
These 2 steps were really big ones for me. I was all in cold sweat before those 2 days, but I am proud, I fought my fears and did it!
There are still many fears and sad thoughts, like everyone’s better than me, that I won’t learn it all..and for everyone else it seems to be a piece of cake… but these thoughts come and go, but with your inspiration and steps that make, I grow. And I know, I’ll find myself soon enough, and I’ll make many people happy with my photographs. And you are right – it doesn’t matter, what everyone else thinks. Our phlearn-o-phamily is the best!

go go

You actually named some of my biggest fears in photography; shooting models/people and studio lighting. I took a step forward last weekend with both of these. I visited a friend of mine who’s a photography enthusiast and she taught me basic studio lighting and I got to practice directing her within a friendly and safe atmosphere. Plus I got to discover how different it is to photoshop a portrait taken in studio environment. She taught me some cool new techniques for that too.

In the studio: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tingelim/6108301540
In the nature: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tingelim/6092474853 

And I got to bring some of my drawings to life:
http://lifemusicandphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/photography-weekend-grand-finale.html
My first time doing a photoshoot where the concept is totally mine, and I had to direct and plan the whole thing. An awesome experience, all in all!

no offense mac, but this community isn’t just about photoshop.  its about becoming a better photographer.  if you just want photoshop tutorials and nothing more, go to psd.tutsplus.com or do a google search.  If aaron followed your advice, he’d ruin phlearn.

When it comes down to photography my biggest fear always was and probably will ever be…shooting in places where many people walk by or watching you while taking pictures. I know so many places where I would loooooooooove to shoot but in the end I don’t do it because there are so many people around these places. I am a really unsure person and I am alway afraid of the reaction from other people. After watching this video I realised that I can’t be afraid of things like that. As a photographer you have to take risks right…if you always stay at this point where you feel safe, you won’t grow. So I took my camera and a tripod and went in the city on a beautiful street where I always wanted to take pictures. I was so so afraid like….really really really afraid but….I just did it. I jumped infront of my camera like a crazy person and probably people were thinking that I am kinda crazy but I didn’t mind their looks. I even talked to some of them. It is not the most amazing picture but I am really proud of it  

i think you could shoot the man in the street to give more emotion and for the lighting one strobe with an umbrella or a softbox just a basic lighting set 

I will survive! =P – sorry fellow Phlearners I think we’ve hit the “spam” lines now haha

    My challenge is not as much a photograph as a story. I did a shoot with an attractive model this past week and the pictures were coming out great. However, I really didn’t feel a huge connection to them. I have really been thinking about the direction I want to take in this since I am fairly new to photography and come from a video/film background. I was talking to Elisa (http://www.elisamichelene.com) and Aaron I already told you this, but we both agreed your past couple weeks of motivational episodes have been awesome for building a bit more of a distinction for our business and work and I’m positive everyone feels the same way.
    So it actually started on my anniversary with my wife, that something developed in me. We were in the hotel room and she was next to me in the bed, before she went to sleep she noticed one of the photos from the shoot on my laptop and said man that seems dark. So after a while I came back to it. I started messing with the eyes and doing some “Phlearnation” to it and it started becoming darker and darker. Long story short it resulted in the image below which is maybe not super dark for most people but for me it is pretty dark. I realized that I love that style it really represents my attitude in art.
    Now getting to the challenge, for me this style presents a problem. I grew up in and around a very Christian, “positive all the time” “Rainbows and Glitter” environment. I posted the image and right away got some bad responses (which I used the power of delete on;). Every bad response, however, was hard on me because I really want people to like my work or at least relate to it. I even had people text me and ask if everything has been going ok, lol  and then some of the good ones started coming through.  Every good response I received made me feel even more passion about this one photograph.
    To expedite this story, I broke the news yesterday to my “sweet” wife, “I want to do fashion photography”. I want to work primarily with women and do dark work that makes you think of hurt and pain people go through but evokes emotion and makes you come back to the image. I’m not talking emo/screamo/deathcore type of work but just to show the other side of life. The side we all deal with when a boyfriend dumps a girl, or a dog gets hit by a car, or someone is being bullied. So thanks for reading, didn’t mean to write a book. But this was my challenge and after a lengthy 3 plus hour conversation, my wife finally understood and with hesitation, said she could be ok with it. Which I then promptly scheduled 3 more shoots with different models and re booked the same model. Now I have to work on my parents;) But thanks Aaron for the challenge I already have won a lot on my personal little battle field.

Resources ~ I wanted to thank Les Brumes and http://www.flickr.com/photos/skeletalmess/ for the textures. I didn’t use it in this photograph but I did in some others and I wanted to say how awesome they are. Jeremy Cupp thanks for the posts.
Some technical info on the photo. I used a Canon Rebel XTI with a 50mm on f/1.8 at an hour to sundown. “Photoshopenated” by painting the hands and eyes with a adjustment layer of brightness pulled down to 0 and slightly adjusted the saturation until I had a shadow I was happy with. The rest was personal preference in tone using adj. layer levels, adj. layer channel mixer to desaturate, and adj. layer color balance to add tone. You can see the rest of the photos from the shoot by clicking my name above. I would be happy to answer any questions relating to them.
  

Thanks confirms kinda what I was thinking. Thanks for the tips.

This is funny material you both should copyright it quick!

I’m already seeing someone who is helping to re-build, one step at a time.
This video was the source of a lot of heartache, without it, I couldn’t show my face to my friends. They all live miles away in different parts of the UK, but still. Today’s technology makes the world a much smallers place, and harder to hide. lol

I only managed to get a little of this task done, I have my first dau of teaching media this Monday (7 hours away). So I had to hault everything for that.

The main focus? ‘The Rule of Thirds’ baby!
I will have to battle on with my ‘fear’, during the week. I feel sorry that I let myself (and Phlearn) down

But I’m still on it.

the light seems very strange. If you not have manipulated yourself into this street-scene, please explain the light-situation here…

I had two challenges that I had to work on recently. The first was doing a portrait for a local band in my area. You think working with one model is hard, try working with 5 people that don’t know how to model and then you got what I was working with. Making sure that they were all standing in a position that looked natural. It was also hard for me to make sure that they were all in a spot facing the right way so the composition of the photo would look natural as well. I can do it a few times alright but for a band photo shoot I have to produce many different poses. It can get stressful at times. I do not want to waste the bands time by think of what I want them to do next. I need to be working quickly to get to the next pose. I did find it helpful to think of different poses before the shoot so I had a rough idea of what I wanted when it came time to shoot. I also discovered that a lot of things are a spur of the moment. I got different ideas based on the surroundings, like the second image where we found a grocery cart. As far as using textures go I really could not justify using it on that image. But I did find a photo that I could use it on. I added a steel texture I found on deveint art by searching textures. Then used a layer mask to make it only apply to the face and clothing of the people. I also reduced the opacity so the texture did not over power the people.

My second challenge was more of a finding connections and getting into the publication world. I worked for the Daily Evergreen Newspaper in Pullman WA last year and had to quit when I moved to Spokane for school. During my time at the Daily Evergreen I never got to shoot football. So I had to call them up and find out if I could shoot for them. Its something I really hate doing. Calling and calling and calling to finally figure out if I could work for them and shoot football. Took me about 2 weeks of calling every other day and getting approved to shoot for them. And on Saturday I finally got the chance to shoot the WSU vs Idaho State Football. As far as texture goes I can’t add it to the football photo since that would make it an illustration and this assignment was strictly photojournalism. 

Working with model tip: Watch the TV show Americas Next Top Model. They usually have two photo shoots and episode. Not really in-depth but it is a good resourse. You can see how the photographer interacts with the model a little.

Logan Westom
http://www.loganwestom.com

Thought I’d drop by and share an update. I managed to work on a photoshoot yesterday evening with a couple of other local photographers, and boy I’m sure glad I did! I feel that now I’m much more confident when dealing with models after trying this out for my first time, and got some pretty solid results that I’m very happy with (although can’t share for now since they’re still unedited)!

Thanks for the inspiration Aaron.  A whole buncha work for this image, more than I can fit in one comment.  If anyone has any questions just let me know.  Selective lighting, and texture, that is what I was going for.  Overall I am pleased with the initial results.

Get It Alexis!

I normally take pictures of nature & animals, macro, wideangle, underwater. Most of the critters I shoot are in one or other way dangereous if provoked (as they bite, scratch, sting etc.) As a hobby by itself (my wife is scared sh*tless by my adventures), the most difficult thing I did so far was taking pictures at a concert. Not as the general public, but as the band photographer. I was allowed acces on stage, back stage, etc. I never did that before. Although I didn’t do this, this weekend, it was way out of my comfort zone. Portraits are not my forté. Anyway, I learned a lot and when I look back at the results, they really satisfy me. Here is the one  of the images:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uw-eric/5556509559/

Great Shot!!!! love it

;^D

Justin,

The photo turned out great!  If you don’t mind me asking, how were your lights configured?  I am still trying to work on my seamless background stuff and have yet to perfect it.

wow, sorry for the late response. I didn’t see your comment. http://www.flickr.com/photos/leonardo_holanda/ this is my flickr. I found you!! thanks a lot!

I have the hardest time doing that too!! I just moved to a completely new town in a completely new State and I left all my old models behind! I have no one to shoot and I feel so pent up that I might explode!! But I’m terrified of just asking someone, “hey, I’m a photographer, want to model?” I just seems like such a smug/creepy thing to request… I missed all this the day you posted it, oh well, at least I saw it now. I’m going to try to get out more and just F*CKING talk to people!!!