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?