My first photo shoot

Last night I attended the monthly meeting of IMAGES, the photo club in The Hague. I attended my first meeting before Christmas and learned quite a bit just by listening to what others do and how they do it. I missed the first beginner's course they offered before Christmas and because I didn't have my Canon yet and it didn't make sense at the time.

This meeting was a portraiture session, where those participating were broken into groups, each in front of a professional 'set' with backdrop, professional lighting, an instructor and models (and in one shot you'll see Molly, my friend Peter's Akita). There were four models who rotated so that each group could photograph them. I learned right away that develping a rapport with your model and being able to communicate to him/her what you want - which includes direction on poses, direction on what emotion you want to put on 'film' - is important to getting an interesting picture.

Anyway, it was a great experience and I took some decent shots - and learned a bit more about the creative options on my camera (including that a 4GB card is too small for lots of RAW format shots) - and I've met some very cool people!

These are a few shots that I thought weren't bad (no, this is not my camera in the photo - that'd be quite a trick, wouldn't it? One of the members of my group (Robert - shown shooting above) thought I had a really effective way of eliciting the right emotion and expression from the models - so perhaps my drama background is coming in handy?? Let me know what you think. (None of the pictures has been retouched or modified).