Brazoria County Portrait Photographer’s Spring photo walk

In downtown Lake Jackson

When Bryce first posted this photoshoot, I thought it was going to be a joke. After all it was on April 1st of all days. But to be safe I put down on invite that I would be going. And for weeks I waited to hear “April Fool’s”. But I never here hear it.

On the night before this photoshoot. As I was getting ready, I really didn’t feel like taking all my gear. It’s nice to have all of it just in case there is a need. But it is heavy and for this photoshoot it was going to be a lot of walking.

The weather forecast showed that it was going to be a very cloudy day. I thought I could do this just natural light. Working with bouncing light off of the buildings. Then I would only need to bring a camera and a couple of lenses. But the thought crossed my mind, what if there aren’t any white walls where I need them. To create a great photograph, I have to have light in the model’s eyes. So, I brough one strobe, my smallest strobe with a beauty dish and grid of course. After all I don’t need much helper light on a cloudy day.

Once everyone arrived, Bryce did his little talk about how he planned for the photoshoot to go. Then everyone found a starting point. Not very far from each other. But far enough so we weren’t in each other’s photos. I found this spot in front of a store with some writing on the windows. But I wasn’t really feeling a store front for a location. The grunge of an alley is more what I was feeling. So, between two stores around too the alley there is was, a yellow wall with a kind of green screen door. And in the grown-up grass, a short little sidewalk. This would be my favor spot for the day. The door was still in the shadows and if I brought my model out a little ways from the wall, the sun in the right position for a hair light. A perfect spot in the middle of the city that didn’t look like it was in a city.

This alley was a short alley but a good alley. There were two spots with a whole different look. This second spot, a little ways down was only a few feet wide in between two buildings, had a wall of electrical boxes. Oh, the industrial look, hidden treasures for a photographer!

This was a three-hour photoshoot, but it sure didn’t seem like it. Maybe I spent too much time in the alleys. But I didn’t spend the whole photoshoot in the alley. I did get on the street for a bit to get some great photographs of Cesalina in an awesome dress, the first photo at the top of this blog, in front of Win Revue and in between some brick columns.

Now the photograph below of Cesalina in between the columns was a bit tricky to create. In the background on one side was a bright orange construction sign and on the other was an orange construction barrel. So, the angle of lens, position of the camera and her pose all became important in the creation of this photograph.