TJ

I spent yesterday morning photographing a friend & coworker's fifteen year old daughter; TJ. TJ wants to be a model and I'm going to help her create a good portfolio that she can be proud to send to agencies. Her personality and attitude is fantastic; she's really nice (like her mom) and is confident which I have to think is a big plus for a model. In short, it was really easy to work with her. She wasn't shy about speaking up, offering ideas and trying different poses and facial expressions. For her first photo shoot, she seemed pretty relaxed, showing only a bit of nervousness here and there, which helped me to relax as well. Initially, I was worried that I would make her uncomfortable because I don't have a lot of experience taking portraits and directing the model at the same time. I was surprised at how much fun it was and I enjoyed the challenge. My taste for urban decay definitely helped me to find interesting backgrounds that created a neat juxtaposition between rubble and the model. I stuck with my 50mm and 85mm prime lenses for the shoot and I'm really pleased with the results. I'm looking forward to working with TJ again. I think that the images will only get better because we will both be more relaxed and we'll have some areas that we both want to improve.