For those who know, studio photography is what I love! Being able to control light is one of the most fascinating things. In studio, you don't have to work at a specific time or wait for "the golden hour", you can recreate everything in studio.
But over the past year, I told myself that I would increasingly do on location shoots just to have visual diversity in my portfolio.
However, the rules of the studio and the outside are different!
When I did my first outdoor shoot, I approached the session as a studio shoot: I had my whole team with me but I realized that I hadn't adapted my brain for the outdoors!
Let me explain.
At my Dawson's critique of my graduation, one of the judges made a remark that helped me understand the difference between outdoor and studio photography.
In the studio, because of the proximity, the background, the lack of scenery, the lenses that allow us to focus on the subjects are usually the 70-200mm or the 100mm macro to take advantage of the compression that these lenses offer. Also, they give us a blurred background (shallow depth): no need to see around....there's nothing around!
Outdoors, however, the situation is different. And that I learned from one of the judges (I forgot his name lol). He told me this: "when you work outdoors, in environments, you want to see what's around, you want to see the scenery."
Thanks to his feedback, he changed all my perception and, moreover, he allowed me to better understand and especially to improve my approach when I work outside.
So, as soon as I had the opportunity, I bought a 24-105mm lens to have the flexibility but especially to have wide angles that allowed me to include the set.
Imagine being a wedding photographer for example and you show up with your 70-200mm. The bride and groom rented a magnificent room (or garden), they put in all the effort, the florist did an exceptional job...a dream setting! And you show up with your 70-20mm, already you must always be further away, and all the pictures you take are close-ups with a blurry background. Yes, the blur is beautiful but the essence of the wedding, the decor, the guests, everything is lost!
Or even better: you plan a shoot with a model, for your portfolio, in one of the most beautiful settings, say in another city and on the final pictures you only see the model and the fuzzy background. And when you come back, you are proud to say that you have worked in this or that place but no one sees it.
Tell yourself that if you have to explain a photo, you missed your shot!
Of course nothing that is written is an absolute rule or simply a rule in itself but I think the most important thing is to practice most often, to look at mood boards of things that attract your eye. But I repeat, you have to practice! Practice! Practice! Because you don't learn to ride a bike by watching people ride a bike on Youtube.