My Apartment is a Photo Studio

A really cool friend and coworker has been letting me borrow his studio photography lighting. Using this kind of lighting is so much better than trying to use only ambient light or camera flash. The creative control afforded by these lights can make portraits look so much better. Of course, all of this is well-known by professional photographers. But hey, I'm still learning this stuff.

One thing I really like about portraiture is the challenge of bringing out the personality of the model. There are many photographers whom I admire that can do this really well, such as Annie Leibovitz in her many Rolling Stone portraits of celebrities. I really want to get to the point in my photography practice where I can bring out the personality of my subjects without fiddling around with the technical details of exposure, lighting, etc. I've been making a lot of progress recently, but I'm still developing my technique and abilities. I want to be able to have enough control to accurately reproduce different styles. I find that right now each photo session results in very different results from the previous one. While I of course want to have a variety of styles, but I also want to be able to control them.