Nice to see you again here, my friend! Thanks for being here and for spending a little time with me.
My main target with this blog is to share experiences. I stated this several times and it’s the engine that drives my writing.
Experience, though, comes from learning, from being curious, from studying how great photographers do what they do and then trying to give a personal touch to find my own way of creating images.
When I started making portraits, back then, I only knew the basics about how a camera works and tried no more than just creating something pleasing to the eyes. I soon realised this was not enough. I needed to know more, especially about light. Light profoundly affects the feeling you can give to an image, and I was mainly counting on good luck.
I remember I stumbled on a video on YouTube from this photographer and I was fascinated by how he mastered his sets.
He completely changed my approach to light and how a set is organised.
Peter Coulson is an Australian portrait and fashion photographer who started his career back in the 80s.
If you take a look at his website you can immediately notice that almost all the images are black and white.
The light is used to create, very often, a strong contrast to perfectly shape the bodies of the models.
Another thing you can notice, scrolling the images, is that models are, for the majority, looking straight into the camera.
This is done on purpose. He defines himself as the photographer of the eyes.
After watching this first video, I was curious to know more about him, about how he created those wonderful images.
And I started to watch more.
He shows how to build the light, how to make it fit with the projects and the feeling he wants to send. And he shows how to guide the model to get into the mood, to convey the message he wants to convey.
There’s a beautiful interview in this magazine (the entire piece is only for their subscribers, but this extract is already giving a lot of info) which I recommend you to check to know more about him.
His video marked the starting point of my learning process. From that moment, I thought of a set in a different way, as if it was a mini-project (again, my IT experience helped here) to be divided into phases.
By doing this, I discovered that every single detail concurs in doing a good or bad job. Which is something I didn’t even think about at the very beginning of my journey.
When I have in mind a black and white set, I automatically recall his videos and his methodical research for the perfect light.
Now, every time I place the softbox, the reflectors or any other modifier, I do that with a precise intention. Not guided just by a “yeah, this should be ok…”.
The more I do this exercise, the faster I become in knowing exactly what I want and where I need it to be.
This is learning. This is experience.
There’s a tremendous value in watching what others have done, in particular from those who succeeded.
By doing this, they are feeding the curiosity of those who want to benefit from it with their experience.
And I’m hungry.
If you want to take a look at Peter’s videos, this is the YouTube channel.
Enjoy!
Take care and talk soon!