Studio & UW-Madison Arboretum
Saturday, October 3, 2010 I had a photography session with Katie Thompto. Katie is currently a student at UW Stout, but her family lives here in Madison. The following are some of my favorite shots from the day. In fact, this first image is a great shot of her face, eyes, and her peaceful countenance.
She is a sweet young lady who enjoys being photographed. She had taken some modeling classes, so she knew just what to do with her arms by keeping them away from her body. Keeping the arms away from the body reveals more of a woman’s shape and is generally a more pleasing look.
I like the subject in the prone position. I think it is flattering. It provides an interesting shallow-depth-of-field look. In this picture the face is in focus while the legs and feet are out of focus.
Katie is leaning against the barn-wood wall that is in the studio. The barn wood is all natural and provides a variety of interesting looks for my subjects.
Next we went to the UW-Madison Arboretum. There are many beautiful spots in the Arboretum; this one is extra special and is complete with several ducks that have temporarily made it their home.
In this photo you can see that the ducks were really cooperating quite nicely–they decided to visit us on our side of the pond.
I thought Katie would look great among the weeds, so we journeyed to another part of the Arboretum for some shots just after sundown. Notice the rosy sky in the background. Now if you are wondering if Katie really had to walk out into the the weeds, she did not. There is a path for people to walk on so no damage is done to the foliage. But the natural look is still very good.
Here is another look. I really like this image a lot except for one thing. It looks like Katie’s hips are shifted toward the camera, which is to her best advantage. The subject’s weight should be on the back leg and the hips shifted away from the camera to help show her slender shape.
Katie was a great sport, as she was willing to do lots of jumps for me. She really enjoyed this part, but I think part of her enjoyment came from the fact that it helped to warm her up when it was getting quite chilly. In another picture I could clearly see goosebumps on her arms!