I recently did a portrait shoot with Duncan McLeod.
Duncan is the founder of TechCentral, a South African based tech journalism site. TechCentral has a ton of great original content. I always love reading their articles so I was really looking forward to doing the shoot with Duncan, a highly respected journalist and, it turned out, a really nice guy.
It was a very pleasant shoot. We chatted a bit beforehand, I explained some concepts of posing and how I do my lighting, and then we got busy shooting. It's very important to interact with your subject a bit beforehand. we could have finished the shoot in 5 minutes but rather it took an hour. Understanding who your subject is is key to connecting with them once you are behind the lens...
A lot of a shoot is spent discussing what the client wants out of the session and coaching and directing the subject so that they understand what I'm trying to achieve by asking him to move his chin this way or get her to look another direction and how that relates to the lighting. It becomes a process where you work together to make a few exceptional portraits instead of a handful of mediocre snaps.
