RAW Studios Valentine's network event 2019

I am going to strat writing more blog posts and my first entry into my journal is all about going into wider depths within my photography, especially networking with many other/more photographers & models to interact within my professional experience. My ambition is to become a professional portrait photographer and wanting to work with a variety of different models within the industry. I love to work on location and in the studio, so I tend to look for inspiration on either of these. But I mainly try to find my inspiration through a social media platform called ‘Instagram’ with this, I then find many photographers that always inspire me throughout this view such as the names of Kris Askey, Dan Mogg & Phil Leighton (Well known photographers through who I’ve met). To gain more work experience and to add a lot more work to your portfolio you can’t always just sit around waiting for clients/models to just come to you… You have to interact with people that you haven’t of course met before through social media and networking events which is exactly what I did, and I regularly try to do.

I have been to a few more in the past previous to this one already but I recently went to a Valentines networking studio shoot day at RAW studios, based in Halesowen, Birmingham. The whole idea behind these kinds of events is the studio is set up with a ring light, a few ‘Pixapro’ branded lights and a few spaces with some beautiful natural light for you to shoot in for the setup. With the studio lighting being setup before-hand, the studio also put on a show of the seasonal props for the Valentine’s event such as; heart balloons, a teddy bear, confetti etc… which then therefore really made the studio come alive and really worked well for that event.

There were models there to shoot of course and also make-up artists to do their make-up and their make-up being done in a Valentines theme too. The whole point of me going to these kinds of events is that it determines me to grow as a photographer with the help of me really expanding my portfolio. As well as just expanding my portfolio, it’s helped me also grow and gain increasing amounts of experience within the studio too from a range of different lighting set-ups to composition and how to position the model.

For this shoot, I had tried to plan out a bit more what I exactly wanted to aim for with what specific props there would’ve been to use and some natural looking poses that I had in mind. From going to these events held at the studio, I have shot with these models, held conversations with them and the photographer’s too, making general conversation but mainly about how we are getting on throughout the day and what kind of photography we like to do etc… Since speaking to many of these other creatives, I have already arranged to collaborate with one of the other photographers to shoot a model together that I have shot with before to shoot some wacky fashion portraits on location. At the event, there were models I have worked with before at the studio. This helped me feel a lot more confident because I was familiar with how they work and how good they are in front of the camera etc. Their confidence and their ability to naturally pose helped me feel I was able to produce images to my best standard. Overall, the shoot went very well, and I got some brilliant images that relate to the Valentines theme. They are also good enough to add to my portfolio but next time to improve I could shoot in some more areas in the studio to mix it up a bit more.