Student Photographer Page

   This page is dedicated to my workshop Photography students who op to have their own page. As part of the course I will give a page for two months after their workshop. Students, with my help, are responsible for creating their own page.  For a small fee I can give the student a permanent page where they can upgrade their work and if they don't have a website this page can give the photographer some exposure on the web.  

    At present I am using this page to showcase a type of video/still show that hopefully some day models can give to photograpers to show off their full range of talents.  

Featured model: Lisa Jean at One Model Place
Music by Hairpeace: www.hairpeace.net

    The above video as well as the other videos on this site was produced with Pro Show Producer. What made this show different was the amount of video(camera:Mark II 5D) shot on the model in this show.  This was my first attempt in combining extensive video with static shots. As to be expected I made a lot of mistakes in shooting the video, but with a program like Pro Show Producer a lot is covered up. The shoot also showed up the need for supplemental equipment like a shotgun mic. and a decent video head for my tripod. One thing that did work was putting sliders(the kind you stick on to the legs of heavy furniture.) on the bottom of my tripod. This helped to keep the model in the center of the picture as the background changed. I was only partially successful in doing that, but that was more my lack of experience and not the sliders.

The most important lesson I learned from doing the video was the need for preparation before the shoot and the need to check my video on a monitor before the model departed. Certainly a story board is needed to outline what the model is going to do. In addition if the model is interviewed she or he needs to know ahead of time  and come prepared for the types of questions the interviewer will ask. Also I should have used adequate lighting. I tried using natural sunlight and light from overhead halogin lights that I used to light my pictures on my living room wall. This resulted in uneven but somethings interesting lighting. I also shot the video on automatic exposure. I believe this was a mistake and the reason the picture quality at times wasn't as good as can be produced with a camera like the Mark II 5d.

I think there is a future in these types of videos and maybe by the time I make my 5th one I will be a lot better. On the plus side I did a decent job of showing the model to be attractive and highlighted her resume enough so that a potential photographer could look at the video and see she was not only attactive but also experience enought for a possible photo shoot.

These types of video take a fair amount of time to create. The shooting session also takes a lot more time than still shots. I should have taken more time in shooting the video part and checking on my computer for problems. I am a shoot as little as possible type of person, and I will have to improve on that aspect of my shooting sessions. I had a pretty good model in the shooting sessions who still makes the video pretty good, but I wasn't as prepared to shoot the video as I thought I was. When you are shooting a model, don't be cheap. Pay the money for the best you can afford. A good model who knows how to look good in front of a camera will always make you look good as a photographer.

One thing I didn't mess up on is in picking a good model.