As I sit here working on updates to The Dance Collective web site (while missing a class at The Dance Collective), I am reminded of how rewarding it is to work with my clients.  As primarily an Architectural Photographer, the vast majority of my clients are creatives by nature and trade: architects, interior designers, builders, magazines, etc.  and so they approach shoots with the same creative energy they approach everything else in life.  Even my rogue Clients, including Amanda and Enrique of the The Dance Collective are Creatives.  And, seriously,  it make for a way more interesting day, or night, as it was in the case of this particular shoot.

During my interiors shoots, I am a focused perfectionist.  I shoot directly to the computer and double and triple check everything from the technical aspects of things including my lighting and camera settings, through composition, and a plethora of other artistic decisions.  For example, we might move a chair multiple times to get the shot just right.  Props are swapped in and out. Books, pillows, ottomans, furniture.  Candles or lamps may be lit and extinguished.  Until we have that moment.  The one that everyone feels is just the right  balance.  It’s all way more exacting a process than one would ever imagine.

With people it’s a little different.  A lot different.  There are countless decisions that are made in order to achieve the final shot.  But they don’t necessarily build with each shot better than the previous.  You can’t get everyone to achieve the same expression, the same posture, or the same grace in every frame.  People are unruly.  For me, it’s less relaxing and a little more ‘a wing and a prayer.’

So instead of shot 29 being 28 shots more sophisticated than shot 1, sometimes shot 29 looks like this.

And that’s when I’m hoping the bottle of champagne is handy.