October 23, 2018

Senior photography sessions - concept to delivery

October 23, 2018/ Kevin Kubota

Senior (graduates) photography is just dang fun. The youngsters are full of energy and eager to express who they are, and who they are becoming. Well, most of the time. I have had one or two in the past that made me feel on par with a trip to the dentist, but normally this is not the case. This was definitely not one of those times.

I thought it might be helpful to those photographers looking to start, or do more, senior sessions if I outlined the entire process – from concept to completion. I’ll cover the essential pieces that have been helpful for me to create successful sessions and also to ensure that I actually enjoy doing them! Yah, that’s important too, right?!

In this post, I'll cover the thought process, planning, gear I use, lighting tips, workflow outline, software and presets, how to make the fun animated GIF in Photoshop, and how I make use of plugins for cool services to automate getting images online and shareable as fast as possible.

This session was extra special because...

August 04, 2016

Alycia White makes dramatic senior portraits with LunaGrip

August 04, 2016/ Kevin Kubota

Image by: Alycia White using the LunaGrip from Westcott and Kevin Kubota.

Do you want to see how easy it is to take your outdoor lighting up a notch? Here's a fun video featuring Alycia White, showing how she uses a single speedlight, and her LunaGrip, to create dramatically better portraits than she could with just natural light. One of the key reasons to use flash outdoors is to balance the light on your subject with a very bright background. The problem is that simply hitting your subject with flash usually results in very flat, snapshot looking lighting.

In this video you'll see how the simple addition of a unique flash modifier, moved to the appropriate position, can drastically improve your results. Alycia's kind of a goof too, which makes it all the more enjoyable ;-)

Details on her camera and flash settings can be found at the end of the video, or here.

Alycia White uses the LunaGrip and a single speedlight to show how easy it is to get dramatic, beautiful lighting outdoors.

If you have any questions on her setup or settings, feel free to ask in the comments and we'll fill ya in.