I officially signed a lease on a new office space in the Farnam 1600 building on 16th and Farnam in downtown Omaha. Yay!! It's really small and there are some issues with the space, but it is mine and I love it already.
I invited the wonderful Jen Broderick over to the studio to help give me some perspective on what she'd do with the space and if she'd shoot in it and how she'd shoot it. I literally almost never shoot indoor portrait work since I'm always off shooting on location or outdoors, so Jen was the perfect person to ask to help me. She has a beautiful studio in the Hotshops building and does an amazing job shooting kiddos, families, and newborns both in the studio and on location. If you're looking for family photos, definitely check out here work here.
I was thinking a totally different direction with backdrops etc, but Jen encouraged me to use the walls. So I tried it. On myself... And it's a tad embarrassing. But I was the only subject available since Kevin was busy watching the Husker game and I figured that I'm very used to looking at my own face and if I didn't like the way it looked in the light than I would never want to shoot a client like that. Probably not the most proper way to do it, but I only want to photograph people in light that makes them feel beautiful. I really love all the light in the eyes from that huge north facing window. Also my office is literally tiny but I was pleasantly surprised with how much space I actually had to shoot.
I didn't always get the focus right since it was self focusing on the tripod, but I wanted to get a rough idea of the light. I think Jen was right about the walls.
Also, I'm going to post this next embarrassing photo of myself to demonstrate the importance of over-doing-it on your makeup for photos. I put makeup on in the morning. I took these photos (not intending to post them - only to test out the light) around 3:00. Obviously any lip gloss I might have put on in the morning was long gone. I took the next two photos after putting on some bright red lip gloss and a ton of blush, and it still doesn't look like I have much makeup on, but my face definitely looks better.
Without lots of red lipgloss and blush:
The next two photos with "lots" of lipgloss and blush:
