Miami Portrait Photographer | Optimize your headshot!

by | Aug 11, 2014 | Advice, Miami Portrait Photogr...

Many of you already know me on a personal basis, but for those who don’t, my husband Sam is an internet guru. I really don’t know how else to describe him. He works in hospitality helping hotels make the most of their online presence. This week he will be speaking at a conference in Tennessee and so he came to me because he needed a new headshot. Okay, so why is this interesting? Photographer takes picture of her husband… big deal. Actually it was what he taught me that was so cool I wanted to share it with everyone. On one of the blogs he follows Cyrus Shepard created a post called “How Optimizing My Ugly Google+ Pic Increased Free Traffic”. To sum it up, by placing a color behind the subject people were statistically more likely to click on that person or their link/article. Google likes to put our bio pictures all over everything it can now, and the internet has become overrun with black and white head shots, or head shots against a black, white, or grey background. So when I photographed him we did it against, you guessed it, grey (and I included a black and white of the shot for him too, aren’t I nice!?). He shared the article with me after our photo shoot.

 

He took it upon himself to add orange to the background (this is what we would call an artists rendering of what he did, I can’t find the actual file anywhere now)…

Orange. Bright orange. Now, no offense to my beloved or anything here, but after some convincing he let me have a go at changing the grey background to a color for him. I went with a techie blue (he also has blue eyes so that was inspiring me).

When I saw his new headshot with this color pop up in my text messages I the post hit home. My eyes immediately rush to his shot over all the other photos next to text messages in my phone (everyone has a little photo next to their message on my phone). The effectiveness of this in a larger setting (aka, the web) was not lost on me.

Since then, I’ve shot two more portraits one for a writer, one for a jewelry designer, both asked for blue as the color behind them.

At this point, I’m feeling rather out dated with my black background behind me in my bio pictures. Guess it’s time to update myself! What do you think??? Out with the old….

In with the Warhol?

Miami Travel Photographer | Kate Benson Photography | Sailing with the 50mm 1.2L

by | Jul 8, 2013 | travel

I’ve been daydreaming this summer. The lenses I’ve had have served me well but it has been quite a while since I added one to my collection. When I needed a special lens, I rented them from Borrowlenses.com. But I have a rule, don’t rent the lens 3 times. So I started lusting for the 50mm 1.2L Canon lens. The Bokeh is untouched (in my opinion). But I could only find the willpower to resist for so long and the lens arrived. As I’ve written about before, I don’t usually shoot while being social. My brain has a hard time switching back and fourth which leaves me in the work mode full time and not always very communicative. But when my husband and I were invited to come along for a moonrise sailing picnic, I couldn’t resist bringing along the new beauty.

Few things in life are as relaxing as sailing on calm waters with light breezes. Add in good company, tasty food, and a few beers, you can imagine the relaxation deepens. As we casual sailed around Biscayne Bay between 79th st causeway and Bal Harbor causeway, I found that the 50mm was everything I hoped it would be. As the light grew dim, the 1.2 f-stop preformed great. The weather did not preform as well forcing me to tuck away my gear and switch out of work mode to relax and chat with good friends. I highly, highly recommend investing in prime lenses as soon as your budget allows. It’s easy to be lazy and just zoom in or out and primes will keep you on your toes will delivering stunning results. Bellow are some of my favorites from the day, a combination of portraits and details. As we sailed, I spotted another photographer with a 600mm chasing another sailboat around to get shots, maybe next time I’ll have to try that. But if he or she knew anything about light, I’m sure that other photographer was not disappointed as the light was truly beautiful.

 

Kate Benson Photography | Miami Photographer | The chaos.

by | Mar 15, 2013 | Kate Benson Photography

It feels like March just started. Actually, it feels like it is still February. I have lost all concept of what week it is. I know there is a lot of traveling coming soon, but how soon is a blur because I really have no concept of where we are in the month anymore. All I know is that I have been busy. Like, the busiest ever, and it is great! I’ve been shooting everything from editorials for magazines in Colorado to Billboards and TV commercials. Portraits, e-commerce (like crazy), and more portraits have eaten up March. To be fair, I suspect they ate quite a bit of February up too. And speaking of eating, who has time for that? I knew I was forgetting something today!
My blog is neglected as a result. But that is probably the best excuse for neglecting a blog you could have.

My studio is destroyed. I still have an umbrella open on the shooting table, stuffing for bags everywhere, steamers out (but off), lights everywhere, lenses everywhere, etc… because as soon as I shoot, I jump on the computer to bust out the retouching as fast as possible. I can’t be cleaning up! There is no time for that!

But I’m getting it all done. I think I can thank RISD for the ability to handle choices like, work, eat or sleep without any issues (work unless your work starts to suffer because your too hungry, work unless you eyes aren’t focusing anymore and then take a 20 minute nap -no more, no less, 20 is the perfect number). And also for my ability to make anything with a box cutter and some cardboard (actually had to use that skill yesterday while shooting some vintage Chanel handbags). The RISD alumni out there get that all too well.

Really, I can’t wait. I can’t wait for the moment a client gets back to me with his/her selections and I get to dive in and retouch it. I can’t wait to share some of this stuff on my blog and website! I love seeing the way an image finalizes. I love retouching because I have so much fun shooting and I get to explore those moments again in post production. I’m incredibly lucky to be able to do this for a living!  Meeting new people is such a wonderful part of what I do, I find myself smiling while I work on their images, happy to have had the chance to capture a piece of who they are or of what they create!

And now, that moment is here. I hear the ding of my email telling me it’s time to get back in. Maybe I’ll grab a cliff bar and some more coffee first though.

 

Sofia’s Portrait :: Miami Portrait Photographer, Kate Benson

by | Oct 22, 2012 | Portrait photography

On Thursday night last week I was texted by Sofia asking if I had any time to take a portrait of her… tomorrow. It’s always a bit hard to make that work, usually by that point the next day is planned out to the minute. Sofia said she had been hoping to get a portrait done for a while and was finally able to make it happen. This is something  familiar to me, calling people last minute to see if they can see me, acupuncturist, physical therapist, etc. My schedule just doesn’t let me make an appointment a week ahead (at least not if I want to keep it). Was it karma? Fate? One way or another I know that with all the times people have accommodated me I was going to make this happen for her. I shuffled things around, and was able to give Sofia a time she was also available to take her portrait.
The shoot was awesome, Sofia is such an awesome person, who also, like many awesome people, has no idea how beautiful and awesome she is. This image was my favorite, she choose a few others, but I had to blog it. She is an artist and I imagine that if her work is half as awesome as she is then she’ll have lots of success.

The Great Scott

by | Jun 8, 2012 | Portrait photography

One of the best parts of my job is knowing that I’ve given images to a client that they’ve never expected. Because I love that moment so much it is not unusual for me to prime clients with a slightly lower expectation that what I know I can deliver (I know, a bad idea). So I listen to the needs they describe and then tell them where there will be trouble meeting those needs (if any) maybe make a few extra suggestions on how we could improve even more on those ideas and then strive to blow their minds with the final images. Of course after hiring me a few times that surprise goes away but when someone comes who just needs photos once it is my chance to do this all over again. It makes being a photographer worthwhile for me. A week ago I photographed Scott. He needed a collection of portraits for print and online usage (all personal). Scott was a great sport and really trusted me. I knew we had some really awesome photos that day and with his permission, here is one of my favorites:

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