Outside The Box

I spent all day Friday shooting in the studio, and it felt great! I really only try to schedule one shoot in the morning, and one shoot in the afternoon. Before I opened my doors and began shooting for myself, I had years and years of experience working with other photographers and studios in one way or another. Most of those studios would book their appointments back to back so they could pack in as many sessions as possible in a day.

For me though, that does not allow any time to think outside of the box. As an artist and a photographer, I feel that I do myself a great dis-service if I do not allow myself the opportunity to try new things. Things would become very boring really fast if I never gave myself time to try out new ideas.

When I try new things, I like to try them in an actual session. I allow my clients to become part of the creative process. Of course I make sure that I have captured some fantastic work first before I start playing, as I do not want to waste anyone’s time. However, there are no guarantees that when I am exploring new visions that they will be pleasing to look at. But at the very least, we all have a good time trying.

Yesterday, I had a bridal session that definitely drinks my brand of cool-aide, which always makes me feel more comfortable trying new things. From day one this particular customer has had nothing but excitement for my services. So yesterday, I gave it my all!

I wanted to try going way outside the box. But what does that even mean? To me, at any one give time, it means trying to create an image that shows my particular style of doing things, but in a very different way. Normally I will use shadows to draw a viewer’s attention to a particular point in the image, which is normally the clients face. The face would always be the brightest thing in the image. This time I was going to do the exact opposite. The point of interest would be the darkest thing in the image, specifically the subjects eyes.

After about 30 minutes of trial and error, I think we came up with something that is really fantastic. I liked it so much I added it to my site this morning.. I also wanted to share a much more traditional shot that was taken before we started experimenting. Can you see how I have used the shadows in each image to draw attention to a specific spot?

Aric C. Hoek
The Master of Shadows
Houston Wedding Photographer
Book Solaris Studios today.