Once upon a time people used to write comments on blogs. These days, people don’t do that much anymore… Nowadays I get more personal emails than comments so I thought I’d compile a list of Frequently Asked Questions (ie FAQ) so that readers may perhaps find the answers to their questions here. Of course I’m more than happy to continue reading and answering emails too!
Can you do a photoshoot of myself and my partner in such-and-such a place in France on such-and-such a date?
Unfortunately, as I do not live in France nor Europe anymore it is very difficult for me to go back to France for one photoshoot. However, if I have more than one request around the same dates I am willing to make the effort. Also, from time to time I may do a call out for couples (or singles – let’s not discriminate here) wanting a beautiful photoshoot in any part of France when I’m planning on going back for a visit! You can check out my blogposts or my instagram for some photo locations and ideas but I’m open to anything! 🙂
Note that you’d need to give me a minimum of 8 months’ notice so if you want to do a last minute shoot I’m not really the right person to ask.
For costs it really depends on the logistics – time of year (plane ticket prices, weather plays a part as well), number of people involved, location (more rural locations will take more time and effort to get to, however, accommodation in cities will cost more), number of outfit changes, etc. Please contact me with your planned photoshoot details including your date(s) if you’d like a custom quote and more information.
Which camera, settings, tools, etc did you use to take such-and-such a shot?
Currently, I use a Panasonic G7 and a Canon G1X. I rarely shoot with a phone and will only use it as a backup or in an emergency. I don’t think what camera one uses is really that important though as you could have the greatest, most expensive camera in the world and still be a bad photographer or you could just shoot with a smartphone and be a great photographer. Being a good photographer takes lots of time and practice. It isn’t a matter of just buying a great camera and becoming a great photographer overnight without any time and effort put in.
Regarding my selfies, many are actually taken by myself with a tripod and timer. I often use my camera’s timelapse function with allows me to shoot an unlimited number of photos which allows me to choose the best ones, since I can’t really compose the shot perfectly if I’m taking it myself! Often I’ll ask my hubby, friends or even strangers to take them for me and of course none of these people are photographers so the photos don’t always turn out great so I spend time on cropping and retouching, etc, afterwards. On my Instagram feed I want the photos to look like they were all taken by me so I try to retouch them in the same way.
If you want that perfect instagram shot of just you in front of a very popular tourist attraction you have no choice but to get up super early (and I know how hard that can be as I’m a total night owl). In fact, these days, you’ll probably have to get up even earlier than the early time you’d planned as most people (if they’ve planned well) will also have the exact same idea! If it’s impossible for you to get there early and impossible to get rid of the crowd around you I have many post-processing tricks to lessen the effect of the crowds but that’s too complicated to explain here.
Which app/software do you use to retouch your photos?
I’m old school. I started learning photography the old fashion way in the darkroom and I hate taking photos with a phone as I know the quality is so bad compared to an SLR camera (especially in low light conditions). Marketing departments who spend all day talking and boasting about megapixels have no idea! It’s the sensor size on a camera that counts, not the number of pixels. While there are billions of apps out there and I’ve tried the major ones such as Snapseed, VSCOcam, Aviary, etc, there isn’t a single phone app that gives me the flexibility and range of options that desktop app can. I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom since 2008 and still use it. There are so many things that it can do that phone apps can’t. It’s also a cataloguing app. You can’t really catalogue photos in your phone since you can’t store terabytes of photos on there and have to constantly delete them off there. I’ve tried the app version of Lightroom too on my phone and just didn’t like it. Plus as a photographer there are many benefits to retouching photos on a big screen instead of a tiny smartphone screen. That being said, photos do and can look different on different screens so for my Instagram feed I usually go through and use Instagram’s inbuilt app again to retouch a second time before I upload.
Don’t be shy! If you have any questions please post them under a blogpost or send me an email. I’ll be happy to hear from you and help you out! 🙂
Livia