HEADSHOTS! ~from Christian
Portraiture, it's what I've been up to lately. In one of the classes that Alicia taught she told us about jobs and finding jobs doing portraiture, it's funny because in the beginning I was laughing at her I thought to myself, "There's no way it's something people really want or need." But by the end of the night I was convinced and so I started to talk to some people and I got a photo job at a daycare, I was amazed and I felt this insane amount of hope, I'd been looking for a retail job for around a year, but here I had this opportunity to make some money, it was great. I still haven't found a retail job and honestly I've given up on it, Alicia and the family at SALT have convinced me that I can do portraiture also they have lent me some lighting which is great! Portraiture, it's something I don't like very much, my favorite type of photography is architectural photography, but the truth is that I can't take photos of buildings and get paid as easily as a headshot. I like still objects, taking photos of a human is much harder buildings are easier, but when you take a photo of a building it doesn't smile or give you a thank you, photographing a person is much more gratifying. I hope to transcend in portraiture photography and develop an immense amount of love for it and enjoyment.
Class: Thursday, March 11
Today, our class focused on how to do headshots and how to promote yourself. Ydalmi and Kedwein are shooting the head shots for their school play this Saturday. They texted me asking if I could show them how to do it, so we decided to use it as a lesson for the whole class. It's exciting to see opportunities arise in their lives to utilize the skills we are teaching them! In class, we reviewed shutter speed and aperture and talked about how to set the camera to achieve a certain creative effect, how to instruct your subject to pose for the camera, how to use a reflector and available light, and how to choose the right background and lens for the job.
The second part of class, my intern Jorge Fusaro king of social media, gave the kids some pointers on how they could market themselves to make some money doing headshots. We talked about websites that offer free business cards, setting up a website, how to price to job, building a portfolio, and putting up a posting on craigslist for head shot photography. We also talked about how not to promote yourself and being careful with what they write on the internet, facebook, myspace, etc.
It was an awesome class. Lewis had Jorge help him order business cards and make a craigslist post right after class. Of course even though the cards were free it still cost me $9 for the shipping. Ydalmi and Kedwein went away toting a role of my seamless paper prepared for their Saturday shoot. And Christian sent me an email this weekend asking for help with a head shot job he was offered through a family connection. Here is what he wrote:
"Hey Alicia so i was talking to my girlfriends mother, she runs a day care in the Lower East Side and said she was looking for someone to do a few shots of the kids for a graduation, she asked me if I was able to i told her that i would speak to you to ask what i would need to make the photos worthy. I also brought the head shots thing to her and she said that if I did the photos for her day care and they were good she could refer me to other day cares which would be awesome I can almost taste my d700. I'm also doing some landscaping for her next week and I'm making enough for some equipment, let me know if we should talk about it at the studio if so I'll drop by.
Thanks again Alicia, in advance. enjoy your rainy Saturday!
It's encouraging to see these kids use the skills we are teaching them to earn money. At such a young age, they are learning to be entrepreneurs! If anyone reading this post wants Christian to do a headshot for them, he's saving up to buy a Nikon D700 
I think his rates are extremely reasonable!