Magda's Blog

Portrait Photographer

Portrait photographer is a career that i want to follow. As that opens so many doors for me. Portraiture is used in a lot in photography. For example in weddings, schools, newborn and family portrait. To me this is a never ending opportunity.

I will look into what it takes to become one.

What is a Portrait Photographer?

A portrait photographer is a professional photographer who specializes in taking pictures of people. They know how to use photographic equipment to produce an optimal image and may use lights and filters to enhance the images. Portrait photographers may work in studios or on location. They may opt to specialize in wedding photography, school photography or photographing religious ceremonies. Wedding photographers may frame photographs and present their work in an album.

What skills do you need?

A portrait photographer’s primary duty is to capturing quality still images. To do this, you will need to have good interpersonal and instructional skills. For example, if your work may involve small children who often don’t want to remain still and smile. To get these portraits, you might need to engage your subjects, helping them relax in front of the camera. You will also give advice on how your subject positions her or his body. Also would need to use props or lighting reflectors depending on your location.

Being creative and having keen observation skills will help you with developing a concept for a photo shoot, getting images from different angles and knowing the precise moment to take a picture. Strong technical skills can help you perform functions such as editing and retouching images, using various professional cameras and adding images to websites.

Most of portrait photographer are self-employed, you will need good business management and administration skills to handle finances, write contracts and copyright your work. Also the big thing to remember as a portrait photographer would be that you would have to have your clients to sign a model release form and especially when children under 18’s are involve so that you will stay on the right side of the law.

Really good example of portrait photography used in weddings from Indigo Perspective Website: https://www.indigoperspective.com/weddings/

I will be looking more closely what it takes to become an wedding photographer in my next post.

Looking for a jobs!!!

As someone who hasn’t made herself known in the big world, you want to start and put your name out so you could get more experience but also get potential clients.

So to begin my photographic journey and hopefully having my own company. I need to gain the experience but also to see what type of photography I would like to offer to my clients.

So let’s begin the job haunt.

I have been looking for a quite a while and trying to find a photography or video related job around this time is really hard especially somewhere based in Northern Ireland. Most vacancy’s I found where based in London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc.

After spending days looking, I finally found one job based in Armagh. Looking for 2nd and 3rd shooter for a dance show in Armagh city at the end of October. I never shot anything like this before so I don’t know whether this would be something i would like to do. As it says in the description of the job you would be standing in a fixed position trying to gather at least 10 good photographs of each dancer. With it being on the stage you would have to use a flash – I don’t really have much experience with using flash as my camera doesnt have a flash in it so i would have to use the attached flash. In order for this i would have to rent it out but also read how to use to get really good shots but also ask for additional help to get shown what best settings to have my camera in so i wouldn’t ruin any photographs.

I do really enjoy taking portraits and photographing my daughter when she is playing etc.. I feel like this would be something I could learn from and gain a lot experience, new skills.

I just don’t know whether I am that confident in doing something like this just in case if my photographs turn out really bad. Which this could lead to disappointing many parents and the Eclipse Photography company.

Here is the link to the job:

https://www.gumtree.com/p/photographer-jobs/photographers-assistant-required/5396848186?utm_campaign=arts&utm_medium=aggregators&utm_source=jooble

WELCOME EVERYONE :)

Hi all!!

My name is Magda Smolen. I am a second year photography student studying Photography with Video at Ulster University in Belfast.

For one of my modules this year – Professional Practise. I’m asked to create a blog and look into different profession related to photography and video. I will be researching ways to improve my photo skills but also try to find the style that I like. Looking into different careers to see what type of photographer I would want to become after I graduate but also whether I would want to be self-employed or work for someone. I will be look at all of those things and reflect back on the information that I found.