belting

Something has shifted a little inside of me... to this point where I could see being a photographer, in the whole sense. Last week I had two shoots, one for the local theater, Act II Playhouse in Ambler, another for local singer, Jazmine Sullivan.

Working with a bare minimum of equipment for both, I felt something like success. The playhouse shoot didn't go extremely well. Even though I was shooting RAW, the lighting was very low and this being a play about dance, the characters were constantly, only ever so slightly, swaying, even when they were 'freezing' for the shot. Me, stumbling over chairs in the theater... using Dustin as my assistant... pleading for him to go through my quickly-filling cards to erase blury stuff... I don't know what I would have done without him.

The shoot Saturday went infinitely better. Best idea ever was to bring along my step ladder, which I hardly ever came down from. I borrowed a tiny vise-grip softbox from work and used it and my flash the entire time. We ventured out to NE Philly, to the Sullivan home. We were greeted with danishes, fresh fruit, juice and coffee. In no time I had set up a decent lighting arrangement, we were swinging to Madonna, and we had the girl on the floor crawling on a leopard spotted rug, her mom encouraging her to vamp it up. Four outfits, five backdrops, one tired and sweaty Laura and Dustin.


tango © Laura Kicey

The best feeling ever was to watch as she and her mom went through the shots on my camera afterwards. She had always thought she took a bad picture she said. My guess is all photographers in past were shorter than her and thus shooting her from a low, unflattering angle as this statuesque beauty was probably 6'. I left feeling hugely accomplished.


jazmine © Laura Kicey

It occurred to me for the first time that I could really do this... rather than go on, feeling like I am faking it. I am incredibly excited to do it again.