I’m skipping a few shoots and going on to my favorites from my first appointment at the SMP shoot on June 6th.

I shot with E. La Trice for 75 minutes and ended up with 151 images over 11 sets. One of the advantages of being my first appointment is that I’m still full of ideas. One of the disadvantages is that I’m not sure how the lighting will work around the shooting area. I had a little issue with the flash and a few images ended up being darker than I wanted.

The main reason I’m skipping ahead to E. La Trice’s shoot is because I want to compare my favorites against a couple of other opinions of the shoot.

First off I showed the images from the shoot to my wife (who just happens to be a most excellent photographer). She went though and chose the images she liked.  The second opinion is that of E. La Trice herself. She chose her favorites and sent me a message containing image numbers that she liked.

Not sure if you have picked this up but when you pose for me after the shoot you get copies of ALL the usable images. So you get to see the good and the bad. You get the opportunity to find your own favorites. Sometimes I might like the same images as you and sometimes I won’t.

So I’m skipping ahead because I want to choose my favorites quickly so I don’t accidentally get influenced by the other two opinions ;0)

So here goes, my first cut discards two thirds of the images. Now we are down to 50

S01-06 S01-08 S01-08 S01-10 S01-12 S01-14 S02-02 S02-04 S02-05 S02-07 S02-08 S02-09 S02-11 S02-12 S02-18 S03-01 S03-02 S03-04 S03-06 S03-16 S04-02 S04-03 S04-07 S04-08 S04-09 S04-14 S05-04 S05-08 S05-09 S05-15 S05-18 S06-01 S06-03 S06-05 S06-09 S06-10 S07-03 S07-04 S07-09 S08-04 S09-02 S09-04 S09-07 S10-04 S10-05 S11-01 S11-02 S11-06 S11-08 S11-09

Now I have to go through and tighten up my favorites by discarding 30 to get to my top 20.  This is where I choose between similar poses and pick the ones I like.

S01-12 S01-14 S02-04 S02-05 S02-11 S02-12 S03-02 S03-06 S04-03 S04-09 S05-04 S05-08 S05-15 S06-10 S07-09 S08-04 S09-04 S10-05 S11-02 S11-08

Choosing the top 10 is all about playing favorites, which of the images speak to me creatively and the such. This step is very fluid I go back and forth deciding which I like better than the others. I don’t actually pick 10 straight away but rather aim for 15 then find excuses to promote images into the top 10 slots. I also choose my top 10 in order. This will give my over all favorite and my top 5.

In reverse order my top ten is from position 10 to 6

S04-09S11-08 S03-02 S05-08 S06-10

My top five in reverse order from position 5 to 2

S05-04 S07-09 S04-03 S09-04

Now before I get onto my favorite image of the shoot I wonder how I did compare to My wife and E. La Trice herself.

My wife chose 21 images as favorites

while E. La Trice chose 14 images as favorites

My wife and E. La Trice both had S01-12 and S03-21 in common.  My wife and I had 7 images in common S01-12 S02-04 S04-03 S05-04 S05-08 S06-10 S11-02. E.La Trice and I had 4 images in common S01-12 S02-12 S08-04 S11-08.

Each of us had one image in common

20150606 E La Trice  Set 01 Image 12

It’s a great picture and I’m glad we all had an image in common but it’s not my favorite image from the shoot.  My favorite is actually one of the images I have in common with E. La Trice.

20150606 E La Trice  Set 08 Image 04

I really like the super close crop of this image and the weighted balance of the composition. Every thing is focused to the right of the image toward E. La Trice. The left side is an empty wasteland of laminate flooring (do not venture forth ;0)

I really enjoyed working with E. La Trice and I would love to work with her again. She can go from all jokes and laughter to super serious in the click of a shutter.