How to Become a Master of Digital Styling!

Week One of my FREE Photo Challenge & Mini Course, the Strange & Charmed Digital Styling Lightroom, has come to a close and you all are off to such a great start! I wanted to highlight the progress that my students have made this week by featuring some images that I thought were really moving in the right direction. It’s truly a rewarding experience when I check the #CharmedDSLR hashtag and see all the hard work and effort you are putting into the challenge and course, so let’s recap the week and applaud each other on our success!

Day 1: Camera

Although the name of this challenge is Charmed DSLR, I honestly didn’t expect that most people would own or be shooting with a DSLR camera, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of you did own one and were so thrilled for the opportunity to learn how to shoot on one! Of course, this challenge and course does not require you to use a DSLR (the name is an ironic acronym) and so I have equally as many students using the best camera they do own and use, which is proudly a smartphone! To me, it really doesn’t matter what camera you use, because a good photo is a good photo no matter which camera you use to capture it. I have seen DSLR photos that were terrible and I have seen iPhone photos that could be hung in a gallery, it’s all about technique and the eye of the photographer!

Day 2: Natural Light

Right out of the gate, I was so pleased to see how ambitious and downright clever (do you see that gorgeous shot out the airplane window??) my students have been with these prompts. As many know, natural light is some of the best light to shoot in, and I really wanted my students to experiment with this light source to really understand the difference that lighting can make in an image. As these shots demonstrate, good lighting can really take an image to a whole new level!

Day 3: Studio Light

To be honest with you, studio light is probably one of the most difficult prompts I put into this challenge and course, and it was probably a little unfair of me to use it so early in the course, but you all took the ball and ran with it! You all got very clever with your light sources indoors, creating light boxes, using reflectors, lamps and even smartphone flashlights to bring additional light to your images. This work and your ingenuity is truly to be applauded!

Day 4: Portrait

Portrait day was a fun day because I got to see behind the camera to the photographers themselves! With the portrait prompt, there were two ways I expected my students to go, either the literal portrait direction or to the portrait orientation by composing a tall and narrow shot. It was interesting to see that so many of you were open to the self portrait and did a great job infusing your personalities into your images which is a skill that is often takes photographers years to accomplish!

Day 5: Landscape

The landscape images from day 5 were equally as impressive as the portraits and you used this prompt to really introduce us to the beauty of your world. From city skylines to desserts, rolling hills and plains, the diversity of these landscapes was an unique as my students themselves! Thankfully, a recent Instagram update made it very simple for my students to upload shots in the landscape orientation without compromising the composition of the image!

Day 6: Color

I had a feeling that color was going to be a fun day and boy, my students did not disappoint! Many of you focused on the beautiful colors of nature, but I also saw some great home studio styled shots as well that were very clever! Overall, the purpose of the color prompt was not necessarily to force you to shoot in raw color, but rather to get a feel for your personal preference when it comes to color. My personal use of color tends to be very minimal in my photography, I use it mostly as an accent, but others prefer shots filled with saturated color and those differences really help us to define our personal photographic style!

Day 7: Black & White

Black and white images really tell a very unique story. When color is removed from an image, all that is left is positive and negative space and I really saw some great shots that demonstrated that concept. For me, seeing images in black and white often evokes a vintage feeling that was shared with some of my students who chose to style some retro items into a shot. Others took the role of street photographer and gave an almost documentary feel to their images. There really is no right or wrong way to shoot in black and white and as these images show, black and white can be a powerful way to evoke emotion!

Thank you so much to those students who participated in week one of the course! You have all shown such great talent, I think more so than even some of you expected and I’ve been thrilled to hear your stories of personal triumph and success as you make your way through the course. If you are not yet signed up for #CharmedDSLR and want to participate, I invite you to head on over to this blog post to sign up because its not too late to join us and I do have things coming up that you won’t want to miss!

xoxo,