walmart style bridal portrait

[mysteryscribe]

I'm playing with my new scanner. There is so much discussion about business models and styles here thought I would show a portrait I shot about fifteen years ago. this was the walmart style lighting shot with a 35mm camera for the end days of my studio.

 

[oldnavy170]

Thats a nice shot. You can tell by her style dress that it was not done recently. I still say that you did a nice job with this. I like her pose.

 

[sthvtsh]

I love this. And what a pretty dress!

 

[mysteryscribe]

Glad you like it. It is pretty typical of the kind of portraits I made back in the day. Fancy lighting effects, that are common today, weren't back then. Because If you miscalculated, a whole shoot could be wasted. We tended to stick with lighting sets that weren't dramatic, but gave acceptable results everytime. The uniqueness of the portrait tended to be in the photographer's ability to relate to the subject and to have them "show" the good shot.

A portrait then was about the person, not the technique or the equipment. Probably because it had to be. Yes there were some great portraits made by some great photographers of the day. They usually had a person willing to sit more than once, or to pay a super premium price so that a hundred proofs with ten lighting sets was not unusual. Not so the small studio or service. Because of the high cost and small mark up, I tended to be very conservative with the technicals but heavy into "how he or she looked" as a subject.

Almost exclusively strobe for the color issues, now I have no problem shooting almost all bare bulb shots.