I’m terrible keeping up with blogging, but I wanted to take a minute to talk about my experience mentoring with Arianna Parman of Beautiful Reflections in October 2015. Arianna specializes in newborn photography and I have looked up to her work for a while now.
I decided it was finally time to book a mentoring session because I love working with newborns and I wanted to be able to give my clients the best experience and results possible. I wanted to feel more confident in my work and take my skills in newborn photography to the next level.
I chose Arianna because I love her posing, not only beanbag but also with her props. She focuses on every tiny little detail and really does nail the shot in camera – which is sooo important to me so that I can save time in the editing process and create flawless images. She uses studio lighting as do I, which I thought was great to be able to work with someone that had a similar set up as I use.
I won’t lie, I did have my doubts as to whether or not mentoring was worth the investment but I definitely do not have any regrets. I think seeing someone work in person hands on is so much more valuable that anything you can learn on a video. I had the opportunity to assist and pose, see how she supports the babies in various set ups and of course take shots of my own. I loved that she really took the time to work on my angles with me. As I was shooting she would give me immediate critique on my images in the back of camera and then give me a chance to re shoot the pose with her advise in mind. I really noticed a difference in those images I took only seconds apart.
Some of my key learnings from working with Arianna were setting a custom white balance, prop selection, editing, skin tones (this is a big one for me), angles, posing and workflow. I love her relaxed approach to sessions, working with the baby’s mood and adjusting the session accordingly. She doesn’t get caught up on doing every pose with every baby or insuring she has a set workflow every session. She customizes it so that each baby is comfortable and she gets the most shots for the gallery.
Here are some of the beautiful images I shot on the day of the mentoring session:
There are so many photographers to choose from and I know picking someone to mentor with seems really overwhelming. Choose someone who’s style you admire and someone you aspire to be like. I’m a hands on learner so make sure you have this opportunity (like I had with Arianna) if that is something important to you. All in all, make sure you are clear with your mentor about what you are looking to take away from the session. Setting some clear goals will make sure you leave your teaching session with the learnings that were most important to you.
So do I think I’m done learning? No, the answer to that is probably never. But the things I took from my time with Arianna were amazing and I have no regrets whatsoever – it was worth every penny. If anything I suggest going sooner then later – don’t wait until you develop bad habits!!
xo ~ Jessica