Simplicity for diversity in commercial photography
With the right lighting and creative use of depth of field, one can turn an engineering building campus into a diverse photo shoot location for commercial portraits, like I did for these photos in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I left it up to each person if they preferred indoors or outdoors for their candid photos (after I made headshots of everyone earlier). Whether I shot indoors or outdoors, my lighting setup was the same. A very simple and flexible lighting setup of my new 42” Cheetahstand SoupBowl softbox powered by my Godox AD600 strobe light. Just using a different background and positioning the light differently allowed me to get a different looking commercial portrait for each person. Which one is your favorite style?
Christina was a former DSLR photo student of mine here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She contacted me about having portraits made out on location because she was actually now leaving ABQ. I had long been wanting to use Albuquerque Civic Plaza as a location so I was glad she agreed to my suggestion to shoot there. Even though it was a middle of the afternoon shoot, I used my new 42” Cheetahstand SoupBowl softbox to be able to shoot in the harsh lighting conditions in numerous spots around Civic Plaza. The water fountains, unfortunately, were not on, but everywhere else was free of passersby and there was no lack of spots to shoot at.
Senior Portraits are not one of my specialties, but when I do have the chance to do them, I always try and add more own signature photo style to them. This shoot with Ryan came about because just a week earlier I photographed his dad at an engineering consulting company. He asked if I would photograph his son for his senior portraits. I was very flattered someone who had just met me, and was one of 70+ people I photographed that day for headshots, would ask me to make such important and personal photos (thanks Scott!). We met back on the grounds of the engineering company and utilized its great red bridge for the above mixed style photo: casual dress, outdoor location, basketball action! It was my suggestion to get the basketball involved in a nontraditional environment.
One of the biggest compliments I can get as a headshot photographer in Albuquerque is when an actor from L.A. chooses me as his headshot photographer, and after our session, says my work is a good as those photographers in L.A.! Thank you Jake for a great headshot session, your Google review, and for making my job very easy behind the camera by being so good yourself in front of it. Hire Jake!
One of the largest commercial photo shoots I have ever done was this past week at Bohannan Huston, a consulting firm specializing in engineering, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was over four hours of shooting on each of two days. Yet thanks to the great staff and their preparation, it went incredibly smoothly. So well that despite near tropical storm level winds on the second day of the shoot negating the ability to make candid commercial portraits outdoors like on the first day of the shoot, that finding a cool indoor setting was as easy as walking over to the neighboring building and using the psychedelic art tapestry background created by one of their own employees.
I first met Pepper during a summer long series on leadership her company, Giant Worldwide, was giving free for members of the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce. When she needed a new business headshot for Giant, I was glad she called me! During our business headshot photo session I flipped the background from white to black to offer Pepper two very different looks for her headshots. Combined with beauty dish lighting, I was able to make a modern headshot that will standout from all the dated business headshots people are still using. It is my goal to for everyone to have a creative and modern headshot to represent themselves, their brand, and their business at their best to clients and customers.
Angel needed a headshot for her job asap. Being a full-time professional photographer in Albuquerque, New Mexico means I have the flexibility in my schedule to fit in a last minute headshot, right before I had one scheduled late in the afternoon on a Friday. I had everything ready at the JCP Home Studio for when Angel arrived to make a creative headshot for her, but also having it be an efficient shoot so I could still have time to edit the photos before the deadline she needed the photos for her job. The convenience of the JCP Home Studio is being able to look at her photos on my 27” 4K monitor right after the shoot for quick selection of the shots she liked best. She chose one black background and one white background for maximum flexibility using it online.
