Turning Back the Clock to 90s - Timeless Portraiture

by Skip Cohen

​​The first book I co-authored, Don Blair's Guide to Posing and Lighting Body Parts," was with the legendary Don Blair and what a kick it was to do. It was in the 90s, and "Big Daddy" was a master with everything he photographed.

While I know the scans from the pages of an early copy don't do the images justice, I'm sure you get the point. The whole idea of the book was to give photographers tips on lighting along with dealing with Mother Nature's challenges - tall groom with short bride, tall bride with short groom, masculine and feminine poses, glasses, braces, big eye - little eye, hand shots, and the list goes on and on.

I grabbed the two pages above for today's post - only because lighting is still a huge issue for so many of you. For example, I know when somebody says, "I'm a natural light specialist," translated it most often means they haven't taken the time to learn studio lighting.

Well, the holiday season is upon us, and the demand for family portraiture will be at an all-time high this year. Your customers deserve the very best. So take the time to practice your lighting techniques, and then as the new year rolls around, make sure you're signed up for a few lighting courses at any of the upcoming conventions as well as online!

And as we wrote at the bottom of page 71 - Remember, it's your clients who matter the most, not what a troll might suggest on Facebook. As our buddy Dean Collins used to say, "Beauty is in the eyes of the checkbook holder!"

​Happy Throwback Thursday!

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