I did a shoot over a month ago a fellow photographer, Joey Phoenix, actor Matt Wolf, and makeup artist Ariana Leigh. We knew we wanted to do a noir shoot and had a few shots in mind, but were winging it for the most part. We ended up shooting at the Porter Room on MIT’s campus…which did not have A/C.

The room was quite hot, so we quickly developed a habit of talking through the shots in a separate air conditioned room, my rushing to arrange the lighting, and the models rushing in to get the shots before we all returned to the A/C! Despite the not-so-great conditions, we ended up with an amazing set of photos. As I do more shoots, I am noticing my skills increase, which is great! It used to be the case that I would fuss with settings on my camera and flashes, spend a couple hours on a shoot and only end up with 10-15 good shots. Now that I know what I’m doing (and as I work with more talented models) I am breezing through shoots. We end up getting great shots in the first dozen or so frames! Just yesterday, I did some headshots and the very first makeup test shot was simply perfect! Just goes to show that practice (eventually) leads to perfection, or something close to it.