Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Like each day this week, today was started off on the right foot–putting God first! Mandy Novotny led a time of worship through singing, and Will Thornton shared what God has been doing in his life recently. As we were about to launch into our schedule for the day, Will reminded us that in all aspects of photography–whether it be in class, for work, or simply for fun– we should always strive to meet the needs of the person being photographed, and think beyond ourselves. Above all, we should always strive to please the Lord in every aspect of life, including photography.

5 models. 11 photographers. 30 hours of instruction. The challenge: A "real-life" portrait session! Unlike previous days where we have practiced newly learned techniques on fellow students, today five models came in for an official photo shoot. Students were split into teams of two: one acted as the photographer for one hour, while the other was the photographer's assistant; and then the roles were switched for the second hour. It was great to get a feel for how an actual portrait session might be handled, and it was neat having someone assist in different areas of the shoot.

A portrait session is complete. Hundreds of images have been recorded. Now what? We came back to classroom to apply the processing and Photoshop techniques that we have learned–file importing, organization, retouching, and color correction. After our photos were edited and output to a "Client CD," a group went to a local park to play Ultimate Frisbee and enjoy a gorgeous evening outside by the lake. Following our game of Frisbee, we enjoyed dinner on the shore of Budd Inlet.

Each day leading up to this one, we have been learning different aspects of portraiture, and today we were able to assemble the things we have learned, and use them in a real-life environment. Lighting, composition, posing, and photo editing were all used together in today's project to produce a final package worthy of being presented to an actual client. Today we were able to see the "bigger picture" of portraiture as we put our newly learned skills to use. It was a great day!

—PWP2 Student Zach Childers