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Butterflies are such beautiful creatures.

I wish I could be one. I honestly wish I could grow beautiful wings that I literally don't even know are beautiful and just fly around the beautiful Earth enjoying the view.

Marissa is back and this time she came to me with an amazing concept involving a ton of butterflies being glued all over her body. These butterflies are actually clips that you can get from Wild and Free Jewelry. She has a variety of different ones in different sizes.

Some beginner friendly lighting advice of what I used to achieve this look.

First and foremost, I shoot predominantly now with the Sony a7iv. Depending on where I am shooting, I will use a wide variety of lenses. However, for this set I toggled through the Sony 24-70mm 2.8 GM, the Sony 90mm 2.8 Macro and the Sigma 85mm 1.4. As always I popped on my Dream Filter from Prism Lens FX for the images that have a slight glow to them.

For lighting I use a combination of 1 or two flashes. I use the Godox AD400PRO and the Flashpoint AD400PRO with either a 34" Diffuser or a bare bulb flash. I really wanted to experiment with different lighting scenarios to see which I liked best. They all gave a different feel for the images and I think I have a hard time choosing which lighting scenario was my favorite!

Here's a little bit of how I usually approach using flash in sessions as a newbie.

I am no longer looking to be perfect. I think before I tried so hard to make it look like other photographer's work that I would get extremely into my own head about what I was creating. It took a little bit but I finally realized that I was trying to create different work. I needed to create my work but then add flash. There are some key tried and true methods of using flash. Like, making sure there is a catch light in the model's eyes so they don't look dark and dead. But other than that you can move and change your lighting in any way that you see fit! As long as you are creating images you love, it genuinely doesn't matter.

Olivia did a phenomenal job with helping make this vision come to life.

I have never been disappointed with photographing a make up look by her and I cannot recommend her enough! I was able to capture a video so you can see all of the stunning make up and hair movement.

That's really it!

This was kind of a quick shoot that we did in my new studio! We literally finished painting it maybe a day before she came to town to shoot. For the most part the studio is complete and I am able to take on clients! If you were hoping to have your own creative portrait session with me, you can fill out the form below to get started!