I’m feeling somewhat reflective this week, and so I wanted to do a different kind of post about my photography.

Photography is something I’ve been doing for a long time, and it was my concentration in design school. But damn, even though I thought I was doing then, it’s so clear to me that maybe I didn’t. Or maybe the hours and hours of practice and shit photos has taught me something.

So I wanted to take two subjects that have been consistent for me in the last 10 years of making pictures. First up, Drake.

As soon as you get a puppy, if you have a camera, you want to take photos of it. Teaching Drake to sit/stay has obviously become a double edged sword. Poor dog.

How is he 8?! WAHHH

It’s obvious that though my equipment has upgraded, 2013/2015 are the same lens, and this year’s photo was taken with my now ancient 50mm. So really, it’s my eye and style and knowledge of editing that has changed the most.

Though this is my favorite from that same day, also the nifty 50.

And then there’s my sister. Hey, what are sisters good for unless you can make them pose for you at will?

Just kidding….

Again, it’s crazy to me that the kid with braces is now the stunning, tanned creature she is today. But here I note that I’ve gotten so much better at posing, at finding backgrounds that work well, and trying to focus on lighting the eyes. I still need practice in this, but this collage makes me feel like I’ve made progress.

I hope in another couple of years I’ll be more confident in my craft, and there are some things that I am focusing on these days specifically, too:

• Remembering detail shots – closeups of sentimental items, gestures
• Not being afraid to use the whole frame (cutting off the tops of people’s heads is not always bad!)
  • On the same point, not leaving so much white space at top of image
• Getting better about catch lights
• Improving my posing so that I am quicker and have more tools in my back pocket
• Remembering to slow the eff down and relax when I’m shooting

It’s always a work in progress, but it’s nice to see how I’ve improved over, you know, the last 8 years!

There’s a bit of a new craze in the Equine photography world- and that’s a twist on the ‘traditional’ black background portraits- white backgrounds. Now these are nothing new in terms of portraiture, in fact I’ve been a long time fan of Sharon Montrose‘s studio portraits of wildlife and baby animals (seriously- so cute!). But your average equine photographer doesn’t have a studio backdrop large enough to support a subject as large as a horse. And a lot of us, like myself, use only natural light. So while the concept of the white background is similar, a much different technical approach is used.

In some ways, shooting white background images allows for a lot more flexibility than black background. Whereas in a typical shoot I am constantly searching for soft/diffused light or shade, for these images wide open light is best. I allow myself to slightly overexpose the image, and try and fill the frame with sky behind my subject. This generally makes for a very bright, if not white, background, and then edits in post-processing ‘clip the whites’ in the rest of the background- and voila! White background.
I’m still experimenting with poses (I really love the above one, creating depth within the subject sitting on a completely flat background) and how to look at different colors of horses against the white background.

What do you guys think? Are you into this new trend? Prefer black background? Or not a fan of white/black background at all, and prefer natural-environment/outdoor portraits?