Aaron Riveroll | Photographer

No matter what we do in life, I think we all need to have some sort of reason or purpose for doing it.

Now, I don’t mean to get to all philosophical this early in a blog post…but I was just sitting around here thinking about a possible blog or podcast topic and this popped into my head…

As I sit here in my studio space, I can’t help but notice all of these magazines I have piling up. A lot of them are just because I like magazines with pictures of hot chicks…I mean, who doesn’t? But I couldn’t help but realize that I am published in quite a few of them. There’s something really cool about holding a publication in your hand with your work or seeing a photo that you took just chillin’ there in the public eye. It’s pretty cool.

Now, I understand not all of us have the fortune of being published like that (and believe me, I consider it a huge honor and fortune), but that aside, I think we should all have a purpose for doing what we do…and as a photographer, that means having a purpose for what we shoot.

Not all of us do this for a career. I know a lot of us do this for fun because we love photography and we love the art of creating something. But even if we do this for fun, it’s good to have a purpose or some sort of goal we are working towards. After doing this a while, I can honestly say that going out and shooting just for the heck of shooting is fun, but sometimes you get to a point where you are struggling to find a meaning behind it.

Not every shoot has to mean something. Sometimes we just need to pull our camera out of our bag and shoot something just for the sake of shooting. But it’s nice to have a purpose. Shooting commercial work and print work, sometimes it’s really easy to find something…you have a client that is directing your vision. You know what your images are for, where they are going, how they are going to be used. But you can still achieve the same result without having the backing of creative directors or clients.

Whether or not you have the ambition or desire to get published, push yourself to get publish-quality images. Develop projects with your favorite models and shoot it…maybe collaborate on a series or some sort of coffee table book. There are so many services out there where you can self-publish. Books, calendars…the list is endless. Or why not put together some images to submit to publications. At the very least, there are local publications that can use various forms of art work…and you’ll never know unless you put yourself out there. Or just simply take your photos to the local print lab and get some prints made up. Hang em on the wall…

I have several of my shots in my office and at my house…my buddy Mike Prado (Pradofoto) has work hanging all over his studio. Not only is it pretty to look at, it’s nice to have it displayed for clients and others to enjoy. Pictures shouldn’t be locked up…they need to be out for people to look at.

Or put them in a portfolio book. I don’t even know if people use these anymore, but I still have a print portfolio. I haven’t updated it in a while, but I still use it. Like I mentioned earlier, there is something cool about being able to hold a print in your hand.

With this move to digital, I think we have lost a little bit of the magic of actually holding one of your prints in your hands. It’s a totally different experience. Sure, digital is a great way to share your work with more people, but having your work in print is pretty special and even if your images aren’t for magazines, go and get some of your work printed out and I think you will enjoy it a little more.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that.

Happy shooting. ☺

As a portrait photographer, one of the things I would like to think I excel at is taking pictures of people. I mean, I should hope so, right? It’s not that I suck at taking pictures of other stuff, it’s just not what I enjoy. I really enjoy taking pictures of people more then stuff or things. At a recent photo shoot, I was talking with the art director, who is also a photographer. He was telling me how much he enjoys taking architectural photos, but doesn’t really like taking pictures of people. It’s funny how opposite us creatives can be sometimes.

That’s not to say that shooting stuff, buildings, and landscapes doesn’t intrigue me… It does. It just means that because I don’t do it all the time, I am not as good as other photographers. I stumbled upon this video on YouTube that has some pretty good tips on shooting landscapes. Entertaining as well. I enjoyed his analogy when talking about making things interesting and pretty. You definitely don’t want your landscape shot to be boring, because it’s definitely like, “a pizza without topping or stripper with clothes on.” :)

I also enjoy how many times he uses the “s” word.

So models these days seem to be all about the behind the scenes photos.

Whether it’s snapping a shot in the mirror, grabbing one of my infamous Blue Steel shots, or grabbing some of the posing madness.

I have to admit I love behind the scenes photos and videos of my shoots.

Here are some things to make them look better.

And here are some links:

• Zacuto Zgrip iPhone Jr.
• Some of my behind the scenes videos

As you all know, I like to rant about my pet peeves… Not just the stuff that other people do, but also the stuff that I do. And I think the fact that I do it bugs me even more, so I find ways to fix it.

Sometimes, even though it goes against all of my rules, you have to edit more than one shot from a look. Sometimes you need to edit two shots from a look. Sometimes you need to edit 20 shots from a look. Perhaps you are doing a series or a web gallery of some sort and you need several images from the same shoot, probably even the same look or pose. The thing that bugs me the most is not having a bunch of the same image… What bugs me is the inconsistency that often ensues. Even though an image is from the same shoot, either through shoot conditions or photographer error, the images just don’t look the same. And they’re from the same flippin’ shoot!

Images from a series should look like they are from a series; meaning they are exposed the same way, edited the same way, color corrected the same way. And this all starts at the beginning… When you’re shooting. You should be shooting on manual; which is to say your exposure, color temperature, ISO, shutter speed, and aperture should all be the same for every shot. You may have to make small changes as you go, but for the most part the end goal is the same.

And when you take the photos off your camera, you should be making sure that when you work with them, you are working them in a group. For instance, if you are editing in Lightroom, make sure you make all of your adjustments the same. Lightroom makes it easy to copy develop settings from image to image.

If you are bringing the images into Photoshop for retouching, you obviously are going to retouch one image at a time… But before you finish up, maybe open up the previous images for reference and look at them side-by-side, just to be sure they all look the same.

If you work with actions, make sure you write down your recipes, sequences, or the order that you run your actions in. This will help you keep the same workflow from image to image.

Consistency is so important… It lets clients know you are able to nail the shot 100% of the time. They hire you for your style and skill, but they want to make sure you can achieve the same look on demand. By making sure your end product is not only quality, but also consistent, you demonstrate that you can deliver. And creating a polished end result is the mark of a professional.

When it comes to workflow, the fact of the matter is everybody does things a little bit differently. But the one thing that we all have in common is that were always trying to shave seconds off our process. Nobody wants to be stuck at home on a Friday night editing photos for hours.

Although sometimes, we end up doing just that.

I’m not going to lie, aside from the obvious questions about lighting setups and whatnot, the one thing I get asked a lot (and the questions I love to ask other photographers) are mostly related to workflow. How can we speed things up? How can we work smarter, not harder?

Depending on your thought process and what you shoot, the debates about shooting RAW vs JPEG have been around forever. Everyone has their own opinion on this. I, personally, like to shoot RAW. I like the flexibility it gives me in post… I mean seriously, haven’t there been times where you screwed up exposure or color temperature and wish you just had a little bit of flexibility in bringing it back to reality? RAW does that for me. The problems with shooting RAW are obvious: large file sizes and processing times. Normally, even with my computers, which have fairly decent and fast processors, it would take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes just to bust out a proofing gallery for the web from a typical photo shoot.

I feel that proofs are essential for the client to see what was generated… But not just for the client, for the makeup artist, hairstylist, wardrobe, and model… It’s important for everyone involved to be able to see the work that was generated to see what was done right, what was done wrong, things to improve on, etc. But 30 minutes just to generate a bunch of proofs is pretty ridiculous. That’s 30 minutes I could be already starting to work on images… But instead, I’m waiting for my computer to finish processing images, and that’s no bueno. Fairly recently, a no-brainer concept came to me. It’s something that our new dSLRs have been doing for quite some time, so it’s not that revolutionary.

What was this magical solution? Shooting RAW plus small JPEG.

I’m not sure why I didn’t think about it earlier. Instead of writing just one file, the camera writes two files: your basic large, RAW file and a small JPEG. The benefit of this is you get your editable RAW, but you also get an already resized JPEG version that you can e-mail, post to the web, generate a proofing gallery, etc. It’s already small, so your computer doesn’t have to process it from RAW file. And it’s already a JPEG, which means your computer is not actually processing image information, only resizing it to your specifications. You could shoot RAW plus medium or large JPEG also… But I feel that a small JPEG is big enough for proofs and sharing. You don’t really need anything bigger than that… If you did, you might as well just shoot RAW and generate a JPEG from that. :)

What’s great about this is because the images are written together, when you import them into a program like Lightroom, the images are bundled together. That means that when you rename them, the RAW version is named with the same name as your small JPEG. Keeping things straight is important for me.

Now, if you don’t like shooting RAW, this probably doesn’t mean much to you. Also, if you shoot sports, events, and some weddings, where shooting fast and furious is important to you, this also may not mean much to you. I’m not going to lie, because the camera is writing two images instead of one, the processing time to get it from the buffer to the card is a little bit longer. It’s not much longer, but it’s definitely noticeable, especially when speed is important. However, if you’re shooting fashion or glamour, or even portraits, speed is not necessarily a huge factor… And if you can save some time in the end, it’s totally worth it.

If you’re looking to shave some time off of your post process and if you’re someone like me who likes to share photos quickly right after a photo shoot, shooting RAW plus small JPEG will definitely help out.

One of my favorite parts of being a photographer is getting to meet all kinds of people. Not just the models…even though that is a lot of fun. ;) But I get to meet a lot of people in general.

This past month, as many of you probably already know, I photographed several bikini contests for all of the Hooters restaurants in Southern California. At one particular contest, I got to the restaurant early, set up my equipment, and was sitting down to a little bit of editing and dinner before the contest started. A gentleman who had watched me set up decided to come over for a little bit of conversation. He was a photographer as well; and he started to talk about how anyone could be a photographer these days. He also went on to say how Photoshop makes him a better photographer. He said, “It doesn’t really matter if you take a bad picture or not…you can always fix it in Photoshop.”

I let him talk for a few minutes before I said anything… he went on to say how cameras are so good these days that even if you take a bad photo, you can still make it look good in Photoshop and he admitted that oftentimes he really didn’t care how good the pictures were coming out because he knew he could fix them later.

I’m about to tell you what I told him… I’m not really sure about you, but I’m pretty damn lazy. I don’t like doing more work than I have to. If you have ever seen me on a photo shoot, I’m usually sitting on my ass. Well, not really…but sometimes.

Fact of the matter is if you get something done right the first time, you don’t need to go back and fix it. This is why I strive to get it done right in the camera the first time. That means making sure my lighting is set up correctly. Making sure everything is metered and color corrected. Making sure my camera has the proper settings activated. Basics.

I feel like a lot of times, photographers use Photoshop as a crutch. All of the things you can do in Photoshop are pretty snazzy… and they just keep getting better. Technology is awesome. But we shouldn’t have to depend on it to be a good photographer. You should just BE a good photographer to begin with. And if you know what you’re doing and put forth a little bit of work at the onset, your pictures will be all that much better when you bring them into Photoshop.

Listening to that man talk, I couldn’t help but wonder what his photos looked like. I wonder what he sees when he looks in the back of his camera. More often than not, people are amazed at how good the photos look as they are flipping through them on the back of the camera; pre-Photoshop. Oftentimes, photos don’t even NEED to be retouched. Sometimes people say, “you have an awesome camera.”

lol.

I’m sure a lot of you photographers have gotten that before. Yes, my camera is nice…But it’s not the camera. The fact that I know what I’m doing. :)

And that’s the goal: making your photos look good from the start. Know what you’re doing. And put forth the time and effort to get it right the first time.

So, I found a few seconds in my hectic day to blog about a little something. A lot of people think that one of the most basic shoots you can do here in Southern California is a beach shoot. And quite frankly, it is pretty easy to head out to the beach shoot a gorgeous bikini model. But there is a little bit more that takes place behind the scenes… And the key to getting great shots is being prepared. Even if that means a little basic homework beforehand…

Here’s a little video I shot at the beach a while back on what I do to get prepared for a beach shoot, weather-wise.

Here are some links to some of the things I mentioned:

• Oakley Surf Report
• The Weather Channel
• Surfline.com

One of the questions I get asked most by photographers just starting out and even some models starting out is, how much should I charge?

The fact of the matter is even though photography and modeling is fun, it is still work. A lot of people don’t understand this concept… a job can be fun, but it is still a job. Step in my shoes for just one day and you’ll see just how much work it can be. Don’t get me wrong, hanging around beautiful people all day is enjoyable…but if you’re serious about what you’re doing, then it can be hard work. And people should be paid for hard work.

So the question still remains, “how much should I charge?” The basic answer is that it varies from job to job and a lot of factors come into play. The one constant between everybody is time: how much is your time worth? When you begin to start throwing other variables into the equation, is where it gets interesting. Several factors such as the various products you provide as well as how much skill and experience you have compared to others in your field are all factors in determining how much you should charge.

I stumbled upon this video on the F-stoppers website and thought they did an excellent job at breaking down the various factors in calculating your rate. I also like how it can be applied not only to photographers, but to anybody trying to figure out their rates… including models, for that matter.

Spend a few minutes and check out this video. If you want to get some basics on the business of photography, you’ll be glad you did.

• F-Stoppers.com | A Photographer’s Guide To Pricing Your Work And Services

For someone who doesn’t like change, I sure do like changing things up a lot. I can remember when I was younger, I used to redecorate my bedroom every few weeks…I would move the furniture around, move stuff around on my shelves and my walls…a complete transformation. I don’t embrace change, but I do like trying new things out.

A few weeks ago, I was shooting with my homie, Monica Renée. About halfway through the shoot, I started to get bored. I say that in a good way, of course… Monica is amazing to work with and I knew we were getting awesome shots… it’s just that I felt like trying something new. I was inspired.

Most the time, when I shoot on the beach, I use a combination of artificial light and natural light. I use the natural light as a secondary light source, positioning it as a rim light. I use my strobe as the main, or “key” light, positioning that in front of the model. However, those of you who shoot with natural light know about the “golden hour” and how the sun is in a sweet spot around that time. The light is soft and warm…but, it’s also low enough to the horizon to act as a main light source and not create any funky shadows.

On this particular day, I flipped Monica around, shooting towards the shore and away from the water, using the sun as the key light. To add a little “something special” to the shot, I added a little artificial rim light. I placed my strobe directly behind and to the left of Monica; the strobe was modified with a diffused beauty dish. To add a little bit of “warmth”, to the strobe I added a yellow gel directly to the middle of the beauty dish. The effect was subtle…but I think we got some pretty awesome shots. Here’s the diagram:

And here are some shots of surfer girl, Monica, using this lighting setup…

I always encourage people to try and see things a different way and to not be afraid to try new things. And when I say “people,” that includes me as well. :)

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving home from a shoot and chatting with my cousin about photography. Like me, he’s a photo geek too…and with a new baby in the house, he’s been taking lots and lots of pictures and getting more into it. It’s nice to have someone in the family that understands the nerdery.

He’s been playing around more and more with artificial light…and I remember when I first dabbled with off camera flash and strobes. I remember it being overwhelming; even though I had a pretty good grasp of lighting of the natural variety, a lot of things went over my head. What sort of lights do I use. Where do I put them? How far away do I position them from the model? How many lights do I use. How do I trigger them? What are modifiers?

The fact of the matter is a lot of these questions will never be answered definitively. There are so many different combinations and possibilities that there is no one right answer.

Anyway, my cousin started telling me he heard about this thing called “the Triangle.” He was told it was a pretty basic lighting set up and that he should learn it.

It’s true, in glamour photography, there is a staple. A go-to lighting scenario, if you will. It’s no secret: you see it everywhere in glam mags…and the best glam photographers use this set up in different variations…but it’s essentially the same. This is what I believe the Triangle is, in its basic form…

The idea is to sandwich your model between two light sources by placing your lights opposite of each other. For instance, imagine a box and your model is standing in the middle of the box. You position your lights across from each other like so…

And if you happen to be using one light and the sun, you would position your model so that the sunlight hits the back/side of the model at a 45 degree angle…and then you would position your key light diagonal from the sun.

The other day, I had a fun beach photo shoot and here’s a perfect example of the Triangle light set up…

During this location shoot, I used two lights: my key light was a strobe into a diffused white beauty dish on a boom arm, and my accent/rim lights were the sun to the left of the model and a strobe to the right of the model into a bare reflector.

I find that accent/rim lights add a little something special to an otherwise boring/ordinary photo. They key is using rim lights correctly. But, I’ll save that for another blog post when I share some of my photographic pet peeves. :)