One of my favorite things about having a relaxed style of portraiture is that I get these moments that, for a lot of photographers, would be “outtakes” and yet for me are the real and beautiful moments that make a person who they are. Good portraits don’t require the subject to be looking at the camera, or even to be in focus. Sometimes those elements are important, but I love the split second that someone lets their guard down because it often speaks more to who they are:

Favorite!

This girl is UP TO SOMETHING.

Redmond, WA: Last weekend, I did some headshots of Christine Allard, a branding and marketing expert in Seattle, for her upcoming speaking and teaching engagements. I replied to her posting on Craigslist, looking for a photographer. When she let me know that I made her “short list,” I went to check out her website and KNEW we would get along. She’s done work for some amazing companies and organizations, including the National Organization for Women (NOW). Ballsy, bright and bubbly, I knew immediately that Christine was a woman I wanted to know.

For Christine’s portraits, I followed my typical approach to studio photos. I keep my studio set ups simple because my goal is to capture the person’s personality instead of just a record of how they looked on the day we took photos. I like to think of this as a “character” approach to photography, since I’m trying to capture more than their physical details; I’m trying to capture the essence of the person in front of me.

To enhance these character studies, I’ve been experimenting more with my post-processing lately and achieving some kinda funky effects. One of the things I’m enjoying is being able to totally change the mood of an image with a few key strokes and mouse clicks. Especially with my portraiture, which I tend to keep fairly simple in terms of studio set up and lighting, I like how much I can change an image in post to create very different images even when the photos were taken only seconds apart from each other.

Some critics of involved post-processing argue that too much Photoshop work is just masking bad photography. While I think that is sometimes (perhaps even OFTEN) the case, I also think it can be used creatively to help tell a story or change the mood or just to experiment and learn. I’m still figuring out what I like and what I don’t like about the new things I am learning how to do…what do you think? What’s working for you? What isn’t?

Christine, it was wonderful working with you! If any of you blog-stalkers noticed Christine’s amazing make-up, check the blog soon for some exciting announcements about package upgrades I have in store for 2008…