Willie George | Portraits

Just a wonderful experience.

I wasn’t expecting the contrary, but sometimes I suppose people can get a little intimidated working for someone they admire. I’m not any different mind you, but when I have a camera in hand it’s a different experience. I’m there to do a job and do it well. I’ll fangirl later, and I did.

These photos were part of a marketing campaign shot to promote the beginning of his new podcast myfaithroots.com

About the shoot:

I think the biggest aspect of any shoot I walk into is the subject I’m photographing first, but then it’s the environment I’m shooting in. Not only the main room but I take inventory of potentially useful elements from different areas as we walk through. I’m looking to build my set and I’ve been known to rearrange a room because the viewer is only seeing what we want them to see within the aspect ratio of the photo we’re making. They don’t see all the furniture strung about the rest of the room or the extension cords running across it because outlets are not close to where we’re shooting.

I look at the lighting sources available to me. Only windows or do we have some lamps to work with? What color temperature is everything? I very rarely want to come into a shoot and dominate the ambient lights with mine. Typically, I’m looking to finesse lighting and complement what is already there. That being said the environment we’re working in must have a flattering ambiance.

I utilized a shallow depth of field in these images to make the focus more on the subject and not the cool environment we shot in. Turning the camera 90 degrees in one direction gave us a unique backdrop increasing the number of looks we could get in one space.

Not having a white wall I mounted a large softbox to one of my lights and created a clean “on white” backdrop for headshots. Works great in a pinch! I recommend it.

All in all, this was a successful shoot made better with my partnership with Johnie Hampton and of course Willie George.

I’m grateful.