Tampa will be overrun with pirates when the city celebrates the Gasparilla Pirate Fest tomorrow so I figure it’s appropriate to post this portrait of Rebecca in pirate regalia today.

This is from a portrait session in my studio this weekend. This is one of a few shots where I deviated from the portrait aspect of the shoot to get something more artistic in nature.

This is just a quick behind-the-scenes shot that I made while I was teaching a workshop designed to help photographers communicate more effectively with models.

I took some time out one evening last week to just shoot for fun with some other photographers at Dave Cross’ studio. Dave had a motorcycle in one corner that served as fun prop to make some shots with.

This is an excerpt from a workshop I taught recently, one of only two photos I took during the day. I made it to demonstrate a concept. The students were all shooting the model head-on and centering her in the frame, pretty simple stuff. I wanted to demonstrate a bit of outside-the-box composition. The concept here is based on adding the bright area at the opposite end of the frame from the model. The eyes of the viewer would normally find the primary subject (the model) in the composition and then stay there. The eyes however have a natural tendency to be drawn to the brightest area in an image so in this instance the eyes have two elements competing for attention across the frame and a path to follow between them. This sets up visual tension in the image and adds a bit more interest.

When lighting a scene the shadows are just as important a consideration as the light when crafting the composition. And if you want to have a nice little challenge try working with a subject that’s wearing both black and white.