In the series of virtual photoshoots, I had a very interesting such session with Himadri. Himadri is a Certified Transpersonal Regression therapist, working with inner childhood traumas. Along with this she is into journaling and motivates her audience to introduce journaling as a daily activity in their lives. Her work involves different methods of healing including Reiki and crystals.
Himadri approached me for a virtual photoshoot with the intention to get some work related pictures. Planning such a session in a virtual scenario is very different from any other photoshoot due to the nature of her work.
To start with I asked her for a video tour of her Healing room, to understand the light direction and intensity at a particular hour of day. Indoor artificial lights don't really work with virtual shoots and natural sunlight through windows and doors is your best friend.
Once I got the video I started planning on what shots I want to cover that relates to her work. Majorly I thought of
- Journaling, here I planned on her sitting and writing.
- Distant healing, which for me identifies as meditation or concentration. For this I asked her to use her crystals and candles.
- Other elements, like a singing bowl or a dream catcher were used for close up shots.
We discussed beforehand what she needs to wear and the best time to shoot. During the session we jump started with Journaling poses as I felt this will ease her in the process and also give me an understanding of her phone camera and lighting conditions. In this pose I instructed her to move the tripod with phone to different directions in order to get multiple shots and then she had more options to choose from.
Once she got comfortable, we started moving fast into next poses and the whole shoot wrapped up within an hour's time slot.
Virtual photoshoot sounds fun and easy, practical but trust me it needs even more planning and preparation then an actual face to face photo session. I have always talked about pros but here I will mention the cons (for both photographer and client) :
- The image quality depends a lot on the client's handset and its camera.
- Editing on a RAW format image is very different then editing on a JPEG image. Most of the mobile cameras click in JPEG format even if it is high quality, the result is never the same.
- The angle and movement of the camera is to be handled by the client so a lot of communication is needed. Moving the tripod and fixing angles again and again can be tiring and frustrating. It's a lot of click and try.
- Client's expectation needs to be set before the phot session to make sure you both are on the same page about the difference in results and challenges.
- It's tough to predict the number of photos that will be delivered after the session, as you yourself don't know how many clicks come out worthy.
But again, in the times of COVID, we need to start experimenting our limits and go beyond to keep working. Himadri showed a lot of trust in me and not only did she love her final images, she instantly asked me to book another session soon.
Here's what she has to say about our virtual phot session : "I have had very good experience with Kriti. I have gotten an online distant professional photo clicked through her and the pics have come brilliant. She puts the client at ease, she is easy to connect to, interact with and her photography skills are on point. Booking and getting a date was easy. The day of session was also very nice. I have planned to get more pics clicked and recommend her to everyone."
You can check more about Himadri here.
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