Safety and common sense

As a photographer you have to keep in mind that when doing modeling photo shoots with people you get many types, more so when doing TFP (Trade for Pictures)

You get the ones that will never be "Professional" they just want pictures to show off on social media.  You also find ones that would make it in different areas of modeling, are very photogenic and yet they shy away from going professional.  From portrait photography to head shots keep yourself safe.
The ones you do have to watch out for are the ones who will just criticize and back bite you after the shoot.  There are social media groups who do not help aspiring models or just those looking into modeling get anywhere.  They teach them bad posing techniques and lead them down paths that are dead ends.  They recommend photographers who are immoral  trying to get models to sleep with them or just take nude pictures.  If you try and tell the group what is right and who is doing the shady work they ostracize you and try and tear you down and discredit you.  Run from these groups.  Run from the drama. Being associated with these types of people and groups can reduce your chance at getting real work or working with photographers who can get you where you want to go as a model.

If you have worked with a photographer that has made you uncomfortable, leave, even before the shoot is over.  After the session go to their business page and review it, give the reason why you liked them or did not like them.  This will help others avoid the bad ones and go to the better ones.  Don't review them with fake reviews, only if you have had first hand experience with them on a photo shoot.
Always go to the photo session with someone.  This will help keep a shifty photographer on task hopefully, if not you will also have a witness.  Even if a photographer promises you that you will be in a magazine don't feel pressured to remove clothing.  Many have online magazines that they will post your pictures in, stand your ground.  Many of these online magazines have followings under 1000 who are mainly people who have been posted in them. I could start one tomorrow and find a larger audience.  Many jobs you get as a spokes model have restrictions on how you look when doing these jobs.  So be careful before you post yourself nude. Unless you are already famous.

When doing a release for the photographer make sure you have something like this "In consideration of the payment of digital images and deferred payment of 10% or $100.00 of the commercial
sale of images." This gets you paid if your image is sold commercially to another company.  In the release contract it should say how many pictures you will get digitally and a time frame until you get them.  Things happen so be a bit flexible, most photographers need to make money so that will be priority over finishing your pictures.  After a month just remind them.  The photographer will retain the rights to the pictures and the use, unless you are famous and they agree to limit their rights, the photographer will always keep the rights.  Money helps if you really want full use of them as a model, then its not TFP any more.
Safety is your priority on a photography session.  Always let people know where you are going and who you are meeting up with.  Even if you have worked with them before.  Bringing a friend or two is best.  Some areas where photo shoots are done there are bad people out there who would try and rob you or worse, more people with you the less likely that will happen.

Skyline Productions Photography

Canon 6D and Canon 60D with the Canon EF 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM

I bought an old Canon EF 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM quite a while ago and like how some of the portraits I have been taking with it turned out.  I decided to test it a bit more both on my Canon 60D and Canon 6D.  This was no exact test as F-stop and such are not identical.  More of a test to see things closer.
If I could get the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens I would.
Only editing was moving the RAW sliders around.

I really don't like the way any turned out, there is something with the focus that is just a bit off.

This was a quick adjust settings, point and shoot:

Canon 60D f/9.5, 1/250 sec., ISO-640, Focal length was 70 mm then I cropped this picture.

 Canon 6D f/8, 1/250 sec., ISO-400, Focal length was 300 mm

Canon 60D f/9.5, 1/250 sec., ISO-640, Focal length was 200 mm

Canon 6D f/7.1, 1/250 sec., ISO-1600, Focal length was 180 mm

"Car d'Alene 2017" is coming. Coeur d'Alene, Idaho's 1920's to 1970's classic cars

"Car d'Alene 2017" Coeur d'Alene, Idaho's 1920's to 1970's cars.

From ones being fixed up to the really fancy ones, Car d'Alene has them all.

Each year now I invite people who want to model by some of these awesome cars.  Dressed in anything between the 1920's to the 1970's.  This is where you have to get creative to do portrait photography since the cars are all parked in close and there are tons of people walking around.  So you stay out of everyone's way and at the same time try and shoot the models with the cars without tons of people in the shot.

Despite having fun doing photography around these beautiful cars I enjoy the lighting challenges it brings.

2016 I have a lot of great models turn out and we shall see what this year brings.

The show starts June 16th late afternoon with all the cars parading around downtown Coeur d'Alene.
On the 17th they are all parked around downtown.  This is when I will be doing my job as a photographer.   These sessions are setup as TFP.  I get to use the pictures and the models get to have the pictures of them.

If you will be in the area and wish to join in, see my Facebook event page and click on the Car d'Alene event: https://www.facebook.com/pg/CDASkylineproductions/events/

How to pose. Kind of.

From portrait photography, wedding photography, event photography, and anything where you have people, you want to be able to pose them in ways that they look good, relaxed and natural.

There is no surefire pose that works for everyone.  A pose that makes one person look awesome wont always work on another person.

This is an area that many people from photographers to models have issues with.  They seem to forget that just because a pose looks good in one picture from someone else, it may look bad on your current subject.   Same with people modeling, just because it looks good on a model in a magazine, it may look bad on you.

Photographer need to also understand that not only is the posing extremely important, the lighting also must be right too.

People that want to look good in pictures should practice posing in front of a mirror.  Facial expressions to hands and everything else.   Although many men seem to like cleavage so much you really don't want to have a photographer photographing from above you looking down your shirt.  Be natural,   Don't try to sexualize your posing.  A good photographer will make you look fantastic.

I like to start off with my client/subjects doing a pose naturally then changing the parts of the body posing to get the image I am looking for.  Some people are very natural at posing and are very photogenic.  Some are not.

Just about anyone can take a picture of a beautiful woman or man and people will like it because they like to see the beautiful person.  If your not so perfect then angles, posing and lighting will be key in getting the best picture you can.

Not everyone will like every picture or pose you do.  If the client/subject likes it, then you as a photographer did your job and they did theirs.
One big thing to help is props.  Anything from a purse to a cup and so on.  This gives the client/subject something to pose around and not look so awkward.

Photographers should direct the client to where they want them to stand, give them an emotion to try and keep directing until you have an awesome pose for everyone.  I would suggest the photographer always have a bunch of props in the car to help out in posing when needed.  Also ask the client/subject to bring along some props too.

Remember tilts and turns of head, neck, shoulders, eyes, legs, feet and everything can change a picture so much.  From attitude to just plane fun.

Keep the photo shoot fun and relaxed and everyone should have a great time making  awesome images.

Rule of Thirds and the Golden Spiral

I have not thought about the "rule of thirds" much through the years.  I just try to frame my pictures in ways that are interesting to me.  Then this "Golden Spiral" thingy came out and people are talking about it.  Since I don't like to use rules like these because it twists my brain when you have all this other information you are processing when posing a person, dealing with the sun, (I do outdoor portrait photography mainly with some landscapes.) Dealing with your off camera flash, and or reflectors and such.

I truly think some photographers have an eye for framing their pictures in camera and for them it's natural.  They probably never think about the "RULES".   So are these rules for the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Spiral made to guide people who don't really have an eye for framing a picture?

So I applied both rules to two pictures I did from a shoot and found that the Golden Spiral is very flexible and can probably work on most of my pictures.  I'm a rebel and want to break the rules all the time.  I'm so disappointed to find I fall into using these rules without even thinking about it.

Remember the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Spiral are guides and getting close is acceptable.  I'm not going to get into all the the details you can find that all over the internet.

Dream Equipment

When it comes to being ready to do Portrait photography, wedding photography and event photography you want to have portable equipment that works no matter what.

So for portability, low light, speed for sports photography and action.   I would want a Sony A9.  I would settle for the Sony A7r II as well.  There are many things that make the camera stand out the main ones are the eye focusing.  Sony has created a camera that can focus in on the eyes of your subject so your eyes will always be in focus, don't worry if you want to focus on other stuff just touch the screen where you want the focus.  It also has dual media slots so you don't lose anything when a card acts up.

A battery for the Sony A9 can last a day, shooting around 7000 images or more.
If you have other lenses there are adapters for them to use.

Doing Action Photography or sports you can fire off  20 frames per second up to 240 RAW images in the buffer.  That's going to get you through the action.

As for off camera lighting:  For portability and action and just easy to use.  Rotolight Anova Pro LED lights.  They have a really nice light and a 50 degree spread.  Soft light.  Fixed 5600K +- 100K color temperature,  Correction filters to make it 6300K, 4400K or 3200K. Flicker free continuous output. Flash Sync/ remote triggering via 3.5mm PC mini-jack. V-Lock battery or A/C power. TVMP bracket.  This light in High speed sync has no recycle time.  I think it goes 11fps.

If your setting up a studio then you may want to go with something else.  I would just use more.  The controllers for these can do over 200 lights at once.

Price is high for both, I feel it is worth it once I save the money.