Seems super simple, right? My exact thoughts. One photo a week would be TOO SIMPLE. If I wanted to become a full-time photographer and my only expectation was a photo a week then I knew my growth wouldn't be exponential. So to spice it up I decided to do one portrait session every week. When I started off I was super ambitious. I wasn't a bad photographer, but I knew I had a lot of improving to do, especially when it came to photographing people. I had just picked up my new Fujifilm X-T1 and the only portrait lens I had was the Helios 44-2, but it was a lens I was confident in given that Fujifilm's focus peaking far more superior than anything Canon could replicate...

Related: Creating Swirly Bokeh! Helios 44-2/58mm First Impression

The first week had come up and I realized I had no one to take pictures of. For whatever odd reason I didn't factor this into my project, however, I had a small following on social media, as well as a few friends who would probably be down so I wasn't too worried. I put out my first tweet out... No response. Put out a few post on Instagram, again nothing. I was confused. Who didn't want pictures for free? Perhaps this was going to be harder than I thought.

My last resort was reaching out to a friend. I didn't want to fail my first week of the project so I expressed that in my message. I had until Tuesday to shoot, but I made it a priority for us to shoot that day. At the time I had no real vision of what I wanted, I just knew I loved Emily Soto's work so I asked her to wear a dress. She obliged and told me she'd be ready in 15 minutes. When she arrived, the outfit was nothing like the dress in Emily Soto's work, the dress was skin tight and the fishnets she wore really threw me off. How could the communication have been so bad? When she said "15 minutes" how was that not a red flag? At this point, I realized I had no idea what I was doing. The shoot turned out pretty bad, the images were in focus (kind of) but there was no depth to them, the chemistry was off and it was just as much my fault as it was hers. My friend, well, she had no idea what to do, and I wasn't helping direct the shoot either. The conversation went like "Do something... Okay do something else now" and that was it... There was too much silence and not enough direction.

#1. Patience is vital. Never rush a session, if it's being put together in 15 minutes chances are it won't go as planned



#2. Have a vision. It's important to have an idea of what you want before you start shooting. Rather it be a concept or a few poses, you don't have to keep this theme throughout your session, but it gives your client something to work with.

Week 2 was no different. I had to ask another good friend of mine to pose. She was excited, I could tell during our shoot, but again the execution wasn't there. This was another shoot that was last minute and due to the freezing cold, I had minimal time to get the shots I wanted. That was another thing I didn't factor in if this was going to be a 52-week project then a good part of that year was going to be in the cold... I should've thought about this, as it was a problem I experienced for the first few months. The shot came out okay, but they weren't on par with my personal expectations.