Testing Helps You & Your Team Grow
As in any art or craft practice makes perfect. I take advantage of our test shoots to explore new lighting and work on breaking away from bad habits, which are mainly rolling back into my comfort zone when facing challenges in the studio.
But even these two valid points are still not all, there’s so much more to regular testing:
- working with new image makers and finding your strongest team;
- testing with new models and finding your strongest talent;
- trying new styles of photography without risking to fail and losing a client;
- repeating newfound lighting, posing and framing to lock them in your photo arsenal;
- developing your new portfolio;
- creating images that you will try and submit to your favorite magazines;
- pretending you’re shooting for a client and delivering as if it was a true job;
- developing your ability to comply with the brief and meet deadlines;
So, it’s obvious that regular testing, personal projects and practicing are absolutely necessary.
While I was tucked away in a beautiful little town on Route 66, 50 miles away from Los Angeles, I couldn’t find the time to get out and shoot often. So I decided to stack the odds in my favor – I signed up with an LA studio for a few shoots a month, and I have also decided to move much closer to the studio, so I will have very little chance at finding excuses to miss a shoot.
Another important part of the setup for progress is having access to models. Fortunately, my web presence helped me to connect with a couple of great LA-based modeling agencies and they are very kind to send me large packages to choose models from for each of my test shoots. My team and I are free to come up with ideas and looks, so it’s a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.
At the moment, my filmmaking skills are at the complete beginner level, but I will continue filming, and it is my goal to be able to produce a nice short “beauty” film along with a photo shoot by the end of 2016.
So, if you are on the Push Challenge list, and have received the first letter – all of the things I’ve mentioned above are my Action Plan items, so get rolling and catch up!
- Define your ultimate career goals,
- Write down your action plan,
- Clean up your web presence,
- Find your studio,
- Find your creative team (many Makeup Artists also do hair, so you may need just ONE person to begin with),
- Find your modeling agencies or individual models,
- Schedule your test shoots for a month or two ahead,
- Share your shoot results with us in the Master Beauty Photography group.
That’s all for today, see you next week!
Beauty Retouching Workflow Checklist
A free PDF checklist for those who strive to be a better Beauty Retoucher
