I Took My Best Friend’s Birthday Photos & I Didn’t Completely Hate It.
When my best friend hit me up and asked me to take his birthday pictures I was hesitant. I hate when people ask me to take their birthday pictures. (I’ll creative direct tho) All I can think about is how demanding people are (rightfully so, since it is their day) and how stressed I get not only on set, but when it’s time to sit down and edit.
In my previous experience, I have always had a negative feeling around “holiday and celebration” portraiture because I feel like it limits my creativity. Nothing against birthday balloons and confetti, but that is just not my lane of photography. Being the friend that I am though, I still accepted the task because I love my friends and ultimately I want them to be happy on their big day. So I whipped out my camera and embarked on this little journey.
Usually, when a client can get me behind the camera it’s because they already know what they want and I feel as though I can help them execute it to the best of my ability. This time was different. The only thing I knew coming into this shoot, is that he would be wearing the Donda tee and that he wanted the photos to have somewhat of a glistening effect. I had no idea how I would bring this to life, especially because we only had about an hour to shoot.
What was originally supposed to be an outdoor shoot, turned inside quickly when we felt the cool wind bombard us immediately when we stepped outside. I didn’t want to be uncomfortable shooting and I didn't want him to be uncomfortable modeling so we decided to shoot in my living room.
I dug through my box of random photography tools and supplies, and I came across two interesting party table cloths that could be used as backdrops. The first is a crumpled silver foil table cloth. Because I knew he wanted a glistening effect I chose the foil because it already had texture and would receive light well and that it did.
Paired with a rich red carpet, once I started shooting I realized that I could tap into an old Hollywood feel, but execute it to still look very clean and modern. The green under his hat brim is what stood out to me. It offered me a subtle touch of color at the top of the photo to compliment the red at the bottom of the full-body shots. I think the richer parts of the photo make it more dynamic against the softer tones on his shirt. Once I was finished shooting this set, I wanted to play around with light and shoot more photos with my second backdrop option.
The second backdrop I found was a deep blue foil table cloth. Never opened before, it had deep creases in it, that I liked. Instead of being crumbled, it offered a new and different form of texture to add to the photos. To shoot the second set of photos I turned all the lights in my living room off & moved the backdrop faced away from the window. A small amount of natural light still seeped through the early afternoon blinds and I wanted to block it out.
I shined a small handheld light with a red filter onto the side of his face. It brought dimension and depth to the portraits. In the post-editing, I made the natural lights and colors more dramatic to give a dreamy effect. I love these photos because they are dramatic but still fairly natural. I honestly should have screen records the editing process. I used the Linear Gradient tool to add definition and movement with the colors.
Overall I just really enjoyed painting on a new canvas. My new camera picks up so much definition and it has me excited.
Shoutout to my bestie tho.
Happy Birthday, Zeke!
