it’s been a while since i did an after action review, and since i did a photo shoot at a not-so-ideal time of day yesterday, i think it’s worth talking through the ups and downs of it.
what was supposed to happen?
i got in touch with an influencer when she followed me on instagram after seeing some of my photos from a recent shoot for a mutual friend of ours. we talked through a few potential scenarios and settled on a casual soho lifestyle photo shoot.
what did happen?
we allotted about 30 minutes for the shoot, and so i had very little time to him and haw about where to roam once we got on site. so in preparation, i took a virtual stroll through the neighborhood using google street view and picked out several potential stops along the way. this really came in handy. we started off at the roxy hotel and then wandered down white street. in my research, i found an historic custom neon shop along that street and we stopped in for a couple of photos there as well. the client’s cab was caught in traffic so we only had about 20 minutes to accomplish what we set out to do, and that made things interesting.
what went right?
the client was a true pro and we got a time and date locked in within a week of first contact. but the start of this was that i received a follow, i sent a kind note to thank her for the support, and we started a conversation through which i was able to close a sale. so that is the first thing that went right. next, my research really paid off, because i was ready for action and even though we only had 20 minutes together, i was able to deliver 82 images this morning.
and that is another thing that went right. my workflow has become very tight, and i was able to roll through the initial batch of about 140 images and select the best-executed shots and edit them in less than two hours. so that is a win. and finally, despite the short time frame, i was able to deliver photos that featured a wide variety of aspect ratios, expressions and movements so she has plenty of images to choose from. despite it being a single outfit shoot, there are enough differences between the photos to keep them from being too repetitive.
something that was out of my control that went right is that it was overcast during the shoot, so we had nice, soft and flattering light to work with and i didn’t have to resort to any tricks like diffusers or hiding in shadows to get good photos.
and finally, best of all the client loved the photos. she already shared the first of them today, and it’s beint well-received by her followers. what more could i ask for?
what went wrong?
something i noticed while i was pulling my 50mm lens out of the back was that there was some dust on the front of the lens. i tried wiping it off, but it seems that it was something other than dust and a bit sticky, so the few images i shot with that lens have some oddness to them, looking a bit dreamy around the edges. this wasn’t really a problem for most shots, but a couple were negatively impacted by the smudging.
another thing that went wrong is that i cut a few of the images to tightly so the won’t fit on instagram quite perfectly. there were only a few images that had this problem. but there were others that i shot too wide, so i ended up cropping out a huge chunk of the photo and sacrificing a lot of resolution.
what can i do to improve for next time?
i need to do a full and proper inspection of my lenses and sensor before every shoot. if i had relied on my 50mm for the whole photo shoot or even a significant portion of it, that could’ve been a major let down for the client, who would’ve received dreamy yet imperfect photos. of course some people would like that look, but i prefer a base layer of clarity. you can always artistically blur after the fact if that is what you want to do.
the results
i’ve talked about the photos and the shoot enough now. i’ll let you judge the results for yourself.
