Shoo Jimmy Shoo...Catey Hill Book Cover Photo

My good friend Catey Hill, whose portrait is featured on my website has just published a terrific book "SHOO, Jimmy Choo! The Modern Girl's Guide to Spending Less & Saving More" A while back I shot her portrait for the book cover and the picture continues to be used in articles, websites and magazines which feature her book. She has recently started a blog too that gives girls even more ideas on how to save money (tips we can all use). She seems to use shoes as the iconographic symbol for excessive spending, which I used to relate to living in NYC. However, since Ive moved to NOLA Ive replaced my shoe habit with a photo equipment habit. So my title should be "shoo...B&H Photo" (ok...cheesy I know)

This picture above is from a shoot done at our friends apt. in Tribeca, NYC and has a much more serious tone than the one they ended up using for the book, but I like the no-nonsense glare in this one best.

Anyway. Yesterday I blogged about staged shots and posted a gallery on my site with a few samples. Some of the shots from the Catey Hill shoot are in it, check em out and most definitely check out this book. It would make a great holiday gift!

Staged Shots

In general I prefer shooting candid shots during events and attempt to capture people doing things naturally. But one important aspect of commercial work depends upon staged shots. The new lights I purchased will force me to pause and try and really try and get some interesting portraits of people at their homes, in their offices, etc. This week I began looking back at some of the staged shots Ive done, (see some here) in order to see if there are certain patterns in my work. Over Xmas break Ill be taking a road trip from New Orleans to New Mexico and want to bring some of my lighting equipment in order to take some portraits along the way. Stay posted this week for pics from a light spirited King Cake Baby shoot done at my house. Don't even ask , just look for pics later on this week.

Pictures of People Doing Things = Lifestyle Photography

It seems as though the commercial category for "photos of people doing things that they would normally do" is called lifestyle photography. For a long time i've been struggling with categorizing my photos and figuring out the best way to display them as sets. Using PhotoShelter is a blessing and a curse because of the flexibility I have with creating new galleries, or 'sets' of images. Sometimes I look at images and think......should this be in the people set, the entertainment set, the portrait set, or all of them? For instance, an image that has a particular commercial appeal might not have that same appeal in a gallery labeled "Travel: Italy" like this image. Knowing that most people don't last beyond the first few images of a gallery, especially ones that house hundreds of photos. Ive recently created a new gallery titled Lifestyle Gallery, which showcases some of the works that might not get as much credit because they're lumped in travel or event galleries with tons of other images. I guess at this point, I want to make my website as visitor friendly as possible and keep switching up the images on my homepage to make people view more and more of my photos. Is it better to show tons of photos from a variety of categories on my site or limit the scope so it seems as though i specialize in one area? Any insight from my followers?

Portrait Time

Just finished taking my lighting class, did some work with my first live model and cant wait to take more portraits/head shots with my new limited edition flame orange Alien Bee Flash Units (Which I just learned are now sold out). Im hoping that doing more portraits will help me actually make some money to pay for all the equipment I just purchased. Check out some of my first studio portraits at my Erica Stavis Photography Photo Shelter site. My teacher Owen Murphy gave some good advice saying that you know you've made a good purchase when you've made your money back within the first two years of purchasing it, so that gives me some time. I sold my Canon EF-S 17-55 Lens on eBay to help leverage the cost of my new lighting set up.....so soon Ill be harassing my friends to come sit for portraits. Next blog Ill be chatting about my decision to sign up for a Photo Shelter Account to display recent photo work and how I'm still trying to figure out which site of mine to plug, Photo Shelter Site vs. Web Site