Tamara Lackey DVD Review : Inside Contemporary Children's Photography
For a while now I have been looking at freshening up my photography style. One photographer who caught my eye was Tamara Lackey. After visiting her impressive site I notice she offered a DVD on her style of photography (and in a moment of black friday weakness - I ordered it last week).
Inside Contemporary Children's Photography by Tamara Lackey is a modern look at portrait and family photography. What you first notice about the DVD is the impressive production quality. I have more than a few videos which are nothing more than a VHS Camcorder set up in the back of a hotel conference room..
The video features Tamara Lackey as the photographer and Lisa Walter her studio director.
As I was watching that video and having Tamara talk about the concept of contemporary children's photography and contrast it against more traditional photography styles; I couldn't help but think about the old arguments in wedding photography where the photojournalists led by Denis Reggie started a revolution against the traditional wedding photographers like Monte Zucker.
However, Tamara gives a nod to the traditional photographers then offers her own view on what contemporary photography is. For somebody like myself I could easily see integrating some of these contemporary images into my photography repertoire.
Back to the video–the video is broken up into sections first giving an overview of portrait photography then going into some of the details involved with shooting children covering technical camera set up, seeing the beauty in children, and interacting with children. Next is a section going through digital workflow and finally a section on business given by her studio director Lisa.
I picked up a lot of great tips from the video - in fact in the next session I photographed I took to heart some of the ideas she presented in the video. In my standard traditional shooting session I incorporated this image:
Overall I really enjoyed the video and thought it was a worthwhile addition to my video collection. I'm definitely going to be trying some of the ideas and integrating that into my work. If you're a portrait photographer looking to freshen up your photography style - I'd highly recommend Tamara Lackey's video.
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