Technically, it’s my third, but I’m not counting the two photoshoots I did with a friend when I was fourteen. So, my first photoshoot.

The planning process for this photoshoot pretty much consumed a couple weeks of my time. My friend Kelly was in town and we decided to meet up, with the added challenge of being socially distant. So, remembering my halcyon days as a budding photographer, I suggested that we do a photoshoot. Kelly was game and so I threw myself into the planning.

I was determined to do a really good job so I scoured Instagram for inspiration and turned to YouTube for tutorials on all aspects of portrait photographing. I particularly focused on how to pose people (especially ones who were not professional models) as that is probably one of my weakest areas besides the actual tech involved. I get practice with composition and such by doing some of my other hobbies (art, to be explored on this blog at a later time) but posing people is particularly unique to this pursuit.

The actual technology involved also requires more effort on my part, but I had done some studying up on that years ago so I already knew enough to keep the DSLR on Av (aperture…?) and that if I wanted things close up to be clear, but background to be blurry, then the magic number should be lower, but this requires more light. Something something aperture, wide focus, etc. I know, I know this stuff is important, but for a while I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be taking my DSLR at all since my cell phone camera is so good. In any case, as I had already mentioned since I was going to be hanging out with a friend, I picked posing as my focus for this photoshoot.

I also knew that based on my time restrictions I wouldn’t be able to shoot at Golden Hour, which as we all know is THE BEST TIME TO TAKE PHOTOS. I would have to figure out how to shoot in broad daylight, so I studied up on that too.

Instagram was useful for location scouting. There were of course all the nearby parks that I already knew pretty well and could think up a few fun spots to shoot. I even pulled over spontaneously to scout out a park I wasn’t familiar with as I drove by it.

The covered bridge would have made for a particularly interesting backdrop, especially since Kelly was planning on wearing a burgundy dress (her bride’s maid’s dress for her sister’s wedding that she would attend the weekend before the photoshoot).

But then I found Paxson Hill Farm and the decision was pretty much made. I mean look at this:

Besides the fact that I am being extraordinarily cute in this photo, do you see the Moon Gate? Isn’t it just amazing?? I had seen photos of this gate and was smitten pretty much immediately. It’s actually part of an old church in Philadelphia, having been the frame for the rose stained glass window. Pretty cool how it got repurposed, right?

The gardens are open to the public ($7 entrance fee) and I had reached out to them to verify that they would be ok with me doing a photoshoot there (yes, on the stipulation that I wouldn’t be impeding other people and not have significant set up of equipment, otherwise I’d have to book the place for $75 an hour). So off my husband Mark and I went, to scout out the place. We needed a date out and this place looked like a delightful place for that.

The gardens were lovely and since we were there during the week, there weren’t a lot of people there (this worked out well since my photoshoot with Kelly was also going to be during the week so it was nice to see what the crowd levels were like) which was great. I’m a shy person and I don’t like making a scene and having a photoshoot in front of strangers felt like that would be making a scene.

Mark had actually asked me what my goals for this photoshoot were. What would need to happen for me to consider it a success? One of the things I ultimately settled on (besides having fun with my friend) was to not care what anyone thought and to just do the photoshoot and not be embarrassed or something doing it in front of other people. I was really determined to cultivate that attitude! I was totally going to do it! Though ultimately, the gardens were huge, with barely any people there, allowing Mark and me (and then Kelly and me) lots of privacy.

Studying, outfit, and location scouting complete I only had a few small details left to consider, like props. Flowers were an obvious consideration but I didn’t know how much money (other than the entrance fee) I wanted to spend on this photoshoot. I found some amazing garlands online (that I would love to buy one day) but I couldn’t quite commit (A recurring theme in my pursuits. I never know if I’m interested enough in anything to invest any particular amount of money into it.). I decided that perhaps some fake flowers that I already had would do the trick. There was some greenery and some nice red-ish, purple-ish family of colors in this particular bouquet. I also had the brilliant idea to bring along some cute sunglasses and have Kelly bring her blue light blocking glasses along as well, plus a hair tie.

One thing that I had noticed on Instagram and among the photographer YouTubers, was that portrait photography tended to just be pretty young women, making dramatic, open-mouthed sexy faces in long flowing dresses. And eventually it got to be a bit too same-y (and all this research made me feel burnt out, something I’ll talk about more in a future post). And I wanted to do something a bit different. I mean I had the cute girl aspect going, and I did have a long flowy dress on the agenda, but I wanted to branch out a bit and thought that something with a “cute geeky girl” vibe might be a good direction.

So then it was on to the photoshoot!

V