Casey Templeton Photography

Back in college, I heard rumors about a JMU student winning College Photographer of the Year, and interning with National Geographic Magazine. I started following his blog and loved his willingness to give business advice, and his seemingly easygoing personality. Before long, and most of all, I truly began to admire his work. I first learned about an internship with Casey Templeton during a class lecture about branding yourself {2010 Promo}. I decided to apply because I would have just finished an 8-month intensive photography program with Boston University’s Center for the Digital Imaging Arts, and the “specs” for the internship seemed right up my ally.

I accepted the offer to come along side and learn from Casey and hopefully be able to contribute. I didn’t know what to expect because each photographer is different in the way they work. Would he be hard to get along with? Would I be getting coffee and stuffing envelopes? The internship proved to be nothing of the sort. My time proved to be extremely educational, fun, lots of work, and a great look into how he does business.

Photography: We had a wide range of work from a portrait shoot with Miss America, commercial shoots with Dominion Power, and a few wedding and family shoots. One thing I really appreciate about Casey’s work is that he doesn’t use lights solely for the purpose of using lights. He works with what he needs. All we need are light modifiers? Great. Pack the reflector. With lighting, one thing I learned was how to use speedlites on fully manual mode to achieve studio quality results on location. Apart from assisting Casey, I also worked on a personal project–recreating lighting from great photographs with a “bride and groom” twist.

Business: OH where to begin…interning with Casey was like taking a 4-year business degree and smushing it into a month. Here are some key words that I will ‘Post-It’ all around me: Set Goals. Network. Brand Yourself. Network. And Brand Yourself. It is most important that everything you create has a flow in color, look, feel, and name. And it is important that people see you and meet you and talk with you. You and your work are the best things that you can use to market yourself. Casey said, “Be as good of a business person as you are a photographer.” Do it. Live it. And family first. Some of the specifics that helped immediately was learning to utilize FTP {Photo Tip – Utilizing Your FTP}. If you are like me, who had NO idea what FTP even was, posted below is a great tutorial Casey put together. Using my website in order to send and show work is really a great tool to have. It is not only the easiest way to have clients view and download files, but  constantly directs people to your website!

After leaving, I feel super prepared to go out on my own. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but setting goals is really helping to spur me forward. From here on out, it is purely self-motivation. Sure, others will encourage me and give me advice, which is indispensable, but only I can take those steps of making it happen.

I take a lot of bad photos and sometimes that is exactly what it takes to get the image that works.  Too many photographers look at bad photos as failures, not opportunities to learn.  These are the photos that take me a step towards the ideal image. The following video shows all 1579 images I took while working a recent fashion shoot.

I had the pleasure of working on this fashion shoot with art director Justin Vaughan, of Richmond Magazine, who gave me extreme freedom to pour my style into the project.  I also worked with stylist Molly Todd and models Mendy St. Ours and Nick Vitale, who were provided by Modelogic Wilhelmina.  You can view this project in print on Richmond Magazine’s Issuu.

It is OK to be overexposed!  When I am trying to make a good photo in a scene that isn’t always the best looking, I try to never accept the light I see as the best it can be. I overexpose my images to clean-up the backgrounds and to bring out the vibrancy of the colors that you can’t see, but are always there.  You may hear a photographer say that cloudy and overcast days are the best for taking photos, this is because some of the most vibrant colors are in the shadows (and no harsh light on a subject’s face, but for this post, it is because of the colors).

Here are a few examples:

Now go and overexpose!

I’ve received several request to give simple camera/post-production/shooting tips so here is my first of many weekly photo tips. Please feel free to leave comments with questions as well as suggestions for other photo tips. Enjoy!

Cloudy White Balance, My Go-To

Starting photographers often complain about dull or blue tinted photos that make their subjects seem lifeless. My cure for this is to start using cloudy white balance.  This setting can be found on most digital point-and-shoot as well as DSLR cameras and uses a cloud symbol. I use cloudy white balance when shooting in direct sunlight, when using a flash, indoors with natural light coming in from windows as well as any other situation where my images seem too cool. This works great for natural skin tones.

Below is an example of a piece of finished wood that is inside near a window, the difference is stunning.

Auto White Balance vs. Cloudy White Balance