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All images copyright 2010 by Ara Roselani

I spent my birthday with Bambi Cantrell, Scott Bourne and several amazing photographers and models. Bambi, a famous and accomplished portrait and wedding photographer, showed us the science and beauty of posing to truly honor the personality and body of your subject.

Day one, I knew I had a lot to learn. I heard Bambi speak at Skip’s Summer School last year, and she impressed me deeply with her experience, passion and vision of beauty. She’s also a fine businesswoman, both professional and personable to the highest degree.

Here are four of the most memorable things I learned during the workshop:

1) The camera sees both ways. If you aren’t having a good time, if you don’t want to be there, if you don’t care about your subject, if you aren’t involved on a deeply personal level, it’s all betrayed in your subject’s face. On the flip side, if you are enthusiastic, engaged, supportive and communicative, you have a much better chance of seeing that passion mirrored back at you. I know one person who loves being photographed–most people find it uncomfortable. Taking that discomfort to a large degree is very possible, and has nothing to do with your camera. It all falls back on you.

2) The Teapot, and “lift your right foot and put it back down”. I have to originally credit Scott for teaching me the Teapot pose, but he’ll be the first to tell you he learned it from Bambi. Scott took a video of her demonstrating it, and you can see it here. She is incredibly clear about communicating with her models, and saying things like, “point your feet towards me”, “lean forward with your chest”, “look at me with your eyes but don’t move your face”. This is incredibly helpful as I work on improving my communication so I don’t frustrate my clients. “Point what where?”

3) Move. Think you have the perfect angle? Time to orbit your subject–sometimes the angle is better up, down, left, right… never settle on one location. It also allows you to do more of the work, instead of constantly re-posing your model.

At the end of the workshop, I had several-hundred images of the models. We did extensive critique of what we shot, and I walked away with a handful of shots I’m happy with. Most of them could be diagnosed with my new knowledge and made better if I re-shot. It was humbling and exciting to see how much I could learn and absorb in 24 hours.

4) Never, never stop learning. You’re never “there”. The greatest photographers I know are also the most humble, the most eager to learn new things, and the fastest to admit that they don’t know anywhere close to everything about photography. Taking workshops from qualified and experienced leaders will always be on my yearly list.

Images copyright 2010 – Ara Roselani

What do I do when I want a new portfolio series? Throw a party, of course!

Weddings and portraits don’t quite seem complete without a Boudoir collection offering, and I’m in love with the concept. We girls often have a hard time looking in the mirror, and sometimes a nasty habit of judging ourselves harder than any ugly stepsister. Photography is about beauty and light and changing our view of the world–how great when that extends to ourselves.

I sent an invitation out to my lovely circle of girlfriends, and was amazed at the enthusiastic response (I was, in fact, slightly terrified at the sheer number of confirmed attendees–but I do like a good challenge). We scheduled the party for a Saturday night at a trendy little Portland hotel.

After two hours of Jenna and me flying around a hotel room much smaller than reserved (last minute booking crunch with no warning), I had cycled through three alternative lighting setups with the small white room. My rented lens was busted and madly cycled through aperture settings every time I tried to focus. Fortune favors the prepared–at 5:30 we turned on the music, lined up the food and beverages, and the festivities began with technical difficulties forgotten and stuffed under the bed. This is why you have backups. Of backups. Of other backups.

Once the girls arrived, the room immediately piled up with shoes, frilly underthings, boas, parasols, jewelry, hats, fishnets, thigh-highs, strawberries, lollipops and, of course!, a brass antique telephone. Three fabulous stylists from Portland’s Pigment Salon came to help my girls look fab, and immediately began working on my first models, MJ and Christine.

The next five hours blew by in a whirl of gorgeous girls and great fun. Everyone looked entirely different and fantastic, all with very different ideas of what boudoir meant to them and things they wanted to try. We went from cute to sweet to sexy to wild and back. The hairstyles were amazing.

Five hours after we started, I sat down and realized I was tired and high off creative steam. We finished up a couple of shots and cleaned up the mayhem. The estrogen meter went back down to normal, and everyone went home with smiles on their faces and way too much hairspray.

I woke up to a pile of hilarious updates on Facebook. Everyone, it seemed, had a wonderful time and had spent late nights or mornings getting hairspray out of their hair and makeup off their faces. Everyone wanted to do it again. That coupled with several images of each girl that I was really happy with made the entire event a raving success. I’m always growing and learning, and there are things I would now do differently. That’s what loving your art and job is all about. Hard work is easy/easier because you love what you do.

I really look forward to more Boudoir parties. It’s wonderful to see a group of women supporting each other and feeling great about how they look, then having images to prove it all.

Take a look at my beautiful ladies:

Thanks to Jenny, Sarah, Emily, Jenna, Christine, Heather(s), Theresa, Morgann, MJ, Tina, Jeanna and Tyler. Love you girls!