Super March Special

Had much fun at recent wedding, nice couple that were kind of enough to travel to a sunset location for a few photos.  You can certainly tell they love each other, a joy to photograph.

Thanks for allowing me to photograph your beautiful wedding.

Being a professional photographer I visit other blogs and forums related to the profession and today I visited a professional forum where a photographer was asking for a critique, I saw the photos and was planning on offering several suggestions on some very obvious problems with the photos.

To my shock and horror all the comments before mine were beautiful, wonderful, great work and sadly these were coming from photographers who should have known better.  At that point I knew there was more wrong with the industry than my comments would have addressed so I simply said nothing, a much better alternative than sounding like a grump.

Granted she was a very beautiful model, granted the exposure was correct, and she has probably never taken a bad photo in her life.  Professional photographers are suppose to look beyond that yes she is beautiful but how do I show her strengths and diminish her weaknesses, how do I in other words make her seem even more beautiful.

Basic rules of composition, posing to add dimension and movement, lighting the express the mood, and add dimension, posing that flatters her body.  The reason for a professional photographer is to make a model look even better than she does already.

Maybe the other photographers who commented were just being kind or frighteningly they may have actually never noticed the obvious.  Either way there is a photographer out there who thinks she is doing great because everyone told her she was.

Praise in public, correct in private, I will probably send a private email with my suggestions and offer them as mere possibilities that she may wish to try next time, along with a YouTube suggestion or two on posing, lighting, and why they are important.

I can begin to appreciate even more now what Monte Zucker was trying to do and he was fighting the good fight until the end.

I think every photographer whether he expects to be a painter or not should read James Gurney's book Color and Light.  It is written with the painter in mind but the photographer could learn a lot about shadows, and lighting, I would make it required reading.  Fantastic book.

Last night at Aldea open house I had the chance to meet some wonderful brides and grooms more importantly had an opportunity to actually have a conversation not something that normally happens at the very large bridal shows where they are simply overwhelmed.

It was delightful to speak with knowledgeable couples that actually cared about composition, lighting, and the importance of their involvement in the process.  I always say it takes three the photographer and the bride and groom.  It is wonderful when I'm not the only one excited about the photos.  Pure heaven.

In the mood for a little color this morning, she is such a pretty model I thought why not..

Just loved her style, confidence, and she takes a beautiful photo.

Beautiful Bride, window light and she did the rest.

This is one elegant bride, quiet reflect moments prior to the wedding.

Looking for a more moody retro look, Sammy lends herself to so many poses.

Another photo of Sammy, a great model I enjoyed photographing, I think I'll do a YouTube of the entire shoot.

Free August Photo Shoot

We need models!

Be photographed in the month of August and receive a beautiful retouched digital image to use in your own portfolio, website, or social media.  In exchange for your model release we give you ours.

These will be at least 2 hour shoots in a couple different outfits, studio and  location.

You can contact us directly or leave your information on the from below.
Hope you can be part of the adventure, it is going to be fun.
Bill Dooling Photography
623-937-4077
www.billdooling@cox.net

Getting ready for the August models, instead of taking off on an extended vacation this August we are going to use this slow month as a model month, a chance to refresh our samples and try new things you would not try with a paying customer.

If you know a model please let them know it will be exciting for all of us, I have a couple movie themes I have been always wanting to do but could never find the time.

Hot Az afternoon warm light, beautiful model, moody pose, moody light.

There are so many new ways of becoming distracted, so many new products and forms of education bidding for your time.  In Photography all you have to do is look at the plethora of YouTube tutorials to easily lose yourself for days or weeks.  Than there is the pay training, the DVDs, forums, Internet classes, seminars, workshops, covering every niche of this industry.

How many different ways to retouch a face, an eye, a mouth.  Painting a photograph in Photoshop or Painter, lighting, posing, composition, business, marketing, one could easily spend a lifetime with the choices available right now.

New products, better, cheaper, making your existing equipment obsolete in months and not years.

Thousands of con-artists coming out of the closet telling you they are making big dollars on some new promotion, concept, idea, scheme. Everyone searching for your dollar, giving false promises in return.

When I think of breaking chains these are the chains I think of breaking.

When the dust settles very little has changed, photography is still between a photographer and their customer all the rest is just noise.  Expensive noise in both time and money.

I know exactly the style of photography I wish to pursue, I know exactly which mentors I wish to pursue, I know exactly the direction and route, now if I can somehow turn off the noise.  :)

model shoot

She no longer searched her soul to be a great stage actress, she was now a commercial success and did only the work of the writers who were the fashion of the moment. 

That more or less a point that Proust made and I more or less framed it into the above sentence.  The salient point for me is am I guilty of this transgression?  

What is more important the craft or what sells?  What are you willing to give up for the craft? 

Idle questions for fill a Tuesday morning. :)

Hallways, arches, pillars that seemingly go on forever always have a sense of time about them, like the ocean it has a poetry when you stare out at the ocean and watch wave after wave like nature is putting on a private showing just for me.

Many of my photography friends will tell me "why don't you charge more so you can work less."

I'm thinking why would that be a good thing?  I love my work if anything I want to do more of each day and not less.