Elizabeth and myself are social media friends and follow one another. She offers proof reading services and her business is called Proof Reading Malta. She contacted me for a shoot earlier this year and I was quite excited to take portrait shots for her, especially since she had three audiences to target: Students, Business and Mothers. So we set about preparing clothes to target all three audiences and Elizabeth was quite organised with that. Pinterest mood boards were set up and she sent me photos of the clothes she wanted to buy. It turned out to be quite fun actually!
On the day we met for this shoot, Elizabeth proved to be as organised as she was online. This really helps us photographers since then we are left for more room for creativity. We started the shoot in a small cafeteria in Rabat where Elizabeth was wearing a lovely suit in off-white. I shot her sitting down in the tiny balcony working on her laptop and it did not take long before we nailed the perfect shots!
Then we also shot a few shots inside the cafeteria which were more like head shots rather than getting the whole environment in the images. Whereas the outside shots downstairs, were more formal and included mid length images.
Elizabeth then suggested a change of clothes so she changed into more casual attire however still classy. The red top with dark blue jeans played a big part on the upcoming images. We found colourful doors that contrasted perfectly with the clothes she was wearing and we both had a lot of fun shooting, and chatting away how this shot will work etc. The shot below is one of my favourites, but maybe because I also love the window design, and Elizabeth posed so naturally for this shot that it just stole my heart. The sun was playing hide and seek through the whole time we were shooting and I find that the contrast in shadows and highlights really played well in this shot. We also shot some photos where we got the street showing in the background just to give a bit of context to our lovely proofreader.
That Instagram Shot
Getting a bit of the street feel
For the setting against the yellow door, Elizabeth decided to add a neutral coloured shawl in order to conceal the red top, however we soon decided to show off a contrast and we got diverse shots against the yellow door with both the sun in and out.
We finished off the shoot with Elizabeth using her favourite book as a prop: Le Petit Prince! She is so natural, and so comfortable in front of the camera that I rarely directed her much. It was always me adjusting to go around her during our shoot and this made her feel more at ease thus giving me more to work with.
Business cards by Panda!
Last but not least I was super thrilled with the great design of her business cards, done by no other than the mighty guys from Panda!
Editing:
First of all I am a big advocate of shooting right in camera, so during this shoot, I paid extra attention to light metering so that I get photos with the right exposure as much as possible thus decreasing editing time. I would rather spend time outside shooting than sitting down in front of the computer on hours on end trying to recovering some blown out highlights! Secondly I did apply my special filter, however just using a filter is not enough. I adapted it to first of all suit Elizabeth's soft pale skin tone, and also to match her soft and lovely character. I did not want to use a gritty edit which would have made her look tough and rough! Elizabeth is a lovely woman, mother of twins with a great passion for the written word, so soft colour edits suit her better in my opinion.
See more photos here!