How to crush your FaceTime Photoshoots

Lazy reader? Then check out my YouTube Video about FaceTime Photoshoots!

In this article I want to show you how FaceTime photoshoots work, and teach you how you can create photos like these by only using FaceTime.

So you probably have seen the trend going on on Instagram, that many photographers due to the coronavirus outbreak are not able to have photoshoots, but this got them really inventive. What some togs then tried and successfully did, like Tim Dunk or Alessio Albi for example, are FaceTime photoshoots.

What this is, is that the model and the photographer are together on a video call, and the photographer is directing the model on where to put the phone, the angle and on posing, to finally take the photos by taking screenshots or triggering live photos through his computer or phone in case of FaceTime Calls. 

But this isn’t really as straightforward as it may sound, there are a lot of things to consider before jumping into it. 

First of all, as you can tell, the quality is still decent even though it is a technically only a screen capture, but theres some things to consider before: So in this blog, I would like to give you a few tips to assure the quality of your FaceTime photoshoots is the best possible!

Alright here we go… 

1. Apple is the Best for this

The best scenario is when you are on your laptop and your model is using her iPhone. Call one each other through FaceTime. 

2. Activate Live Photo for enhanced quality and live photos

Settings > FaceTime > Live Photo
Taking Live Photos also enables you to create GIF’s and in general just make sharper photos because the phone captures a few frames and then selects the best out of them.

3. Activate Upload to iCloud 

Settings > Photo > Upload to iCloud
This will enable the photographer to get the photos he takes straight to his ‘Photos’ Application!

4. Use the back camera

The back camera has a much much better quality than the front camera. Everyone obviously will intuitively use the front camera to be able to see him or herself, but in this case you have to direct the model on positioning of the phone and her or his expression.

5. Use a Tripod

Using a tripod will make your life much easier. If your model has a tripod or a Gorillapod it will make your life much easier because you can simply put the phone pretty much anywhere you want. If you have a selfie stick laying around, you can detach the top of of where you usually squeeze in your phone and screw that thing onto a tripod or a Gorillapod. 
If you don’t have a tripod though, simply tape the phone onto things, windows or anything else. That way I was able to achieve this particular shot
Other alternatives are just leaning it onto different objects in your house, chairs or even put the phone inside of a glass. get creative.

6. Use the photo button (FaceTime only) or Screenshot your Screen

When taking the photo, make sure to use the photo button that is in the bottom right of your computer screen when you’re in a call on FaceTime. 
Another option is that you simply take screenshots of what you see while being on the call, but this only applies to people who are not on iPhone or Macbook. 
Screenshots on Apple computers can be taken with Shift + command + 3 or Shift + Command + 4 depending on whether you want to capture the entire screen or select a certain area. 

7. Look for for the light

Phone cameras are very bad in lowlight, so you will absolutely have to rely on the natural light in the space of your model, or any artificial light that might be there (lamps, screens, …).
If you’re into stuff like this: Try out using different materials or anything else you could use to shape the natural light coming in through windows to make the image more interesting just like I used the window curtains here:

the next one is probably the most important…

8. BE PATIENT

Does this need any explanation? — Haha. Just like for regular shoots, but even more for FaceTime Shoots, you will need  A LOT of patience to explain how you want your model to position the phone, at what angle it should be tilted, what should be in the frame and out of frame, and just all of the things we normally can control as photographers. All the small little details you normally automatically do, like placing yourself in front of something to get some interesting out-of-blur texture in the foreground, or even simply kneeling down to get a lower angle, everything you would do, the model now has to do. And surprise! You are the one who has to explain everything haha! So get yourself a coffee, take some time, and get patient!

4 TIPS ON BETTER AND SHARPER PANNING PHOTOGRAPHY | DAMIR BABACIC

4 TIPS AND TRICKS ON HOW TO TAKE BETTER PANNING PHOTOS

I know I've been struggling a lot with getting sharp panning shots when I first started #photography but there are some tricks that might help some people so here we go!

1. Shoot as fast as you can! While it might be obvious for some, it is important to leverage the maximum speed of your cam, so keep the frames per second (fps on some cams) on the highest setting.
   

2. Don't let your shutter speed fall below 1/20 or 1/15 MAX! You'll get plenty of that beautiful blur with 1/25 or even 1/30! The faster your object moves the higher you can keep it, and thus make your work much easier than trying to pull off the impossible! so anything between 1/20 and 1/30 is perfectly fine!
   

3. This trick made the biggest difference for me: Shoot in Manual Focus ONLY! Estimate the distance between you and your subject, fix your focus to that distance, and shoot. Continuous auto-focus may also work if your camera has great AF performance, but even for super fast cams, it's easier to just stay in MF. The time your camera takes to focus on your gast moving subject, makes you miss the shot.
   

4. Use your fastest lens, meaning the lens with the lowest f/-Stop: This prevents you from having to bump up your ISO in dark conditions too much and get lots of grain. THOUGH: If you're trying to shoot during the day, with lots of light available, keep your f/-Stop as high as you can, meaning anywhere between f/4 and f/8 so that there's some buffer in case you missed #focus or didn't estimate properly the distance between you and your subject.

   SOOOOO...When shooting panning shots, always keep in mind: 1. Fastest Shoot Mode/Framerate 2. Shutter speed not below 1/15, preferably between 1/20 and 1/30. 3. ALWAYS stay in MF, and estimate the distance. 4. For daytime, keep the f-stop as high as you can without influencing other settings. In nighttime obviously keep it as low as your ISO allows you to. For anyone who actually went through this, and LEARNT something: Give me your opinions on whether or mot I should make a video with some examples on how to apply this, I'd love to see whether there's demand for that or not!

Thank you for reading, love you — DAMIR

3 TIPS ON HOW TO GROW YOUR CREATIVE Photography BUSINESS

Want to grow your Creative Photography Business and generate income through something you love doing?

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Well, why wouldn’t you want to make money with something you love?

The REAL question is:
How?

Wether you’re a photographer in Luxembourg or anywhere in the world, I think we all would agree that getting paid for photography, videography or just any other creative service in which we don’t necessarily have a degree, can be quite difficult when just starting out.
Me myself I’ve known an uncountable amount of creatives who are seriously good at what they do, though they were never able to make a penny out of their work. The reason is not that they didn’t want to, but people just wouldn’t book them, and the reason for that is explained psychologically which I’ll explain in the following.

In this blog post I’ll explain to you, how thousands of others did it, and how YOU can expand your creative business, get more clients, and start making some money with 3 simple little tips!

Photo by Lane Smith on Unsplash

So now… How would you do that? In this article I’ll share my experiences, tactics and strategy on how to get more clients as a Creative, and out-leverage your potential photography clients.

1. Have empathy

   Understanding who’s on the other side is so important, it’s insane. Who is your potential client? What does he want? What does he need? What’s his budget? What’s most important to him, and how can you deliver exactly that?

   If you just blindly offer your service without ever asking yourself at least some of these questions, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. Understanding people is crucial to business.

   The in Marketing well known ‘Empathy Map’ is definitely something you should look up to level up your empathy-game.

   The importance of empathy in business understood, if we do our empathy correctly, we start understanding why people want, or don’t want to work with with us.

   Some genuinely appreciate our work and therefore want to collaborate or work with us.

   On the other side some people do not want to work with us because there’s risk involved, which leads us to our next point: Minimising risk.

2. Minimise risk

   See, humans generally have an instinct which is helping them avoiding risks and keeping them safe.

   If a man for example stands on the edge of a cliff, he obviously won’t jump, even if he never jumped off of a cliff before, because it simply would kill him and he can easily tell that.

   Therefore, if you try to sell something to someone, whether it is a product or a service, what you try to do is minimising the risk involved in the service or product you’re offering.

   What risks are there though? The risks for the client are numerous: Bad content, wasting money, wasting time, … This could even go as far as ruining their event, wedding or whatever, because they trusted you and you fucked up.

   A great way to minimise risk for your clients is having a well put together portfolio showing off work you did for prior clients. That way the potential clients can clearly see what you’re capable of doing and maybe even visualise themselves in some of your photos or videos (couples for example). Being honest is in my opinion very important as well. If for example you’re shooting a certain type of photography for the first time, be straight up about it, and make your client aware of it.

   If this brutal honesty makes your client even more thoughtful about the collaboration with you, there’s one very important thing to consider: Pricing. Pricing yourself under market for a domain where you don’t have a lot of credibility gives you a huge advantage, cause even though you may be unexperienced, your client has not much to lose (at least no money).

   Which leads us to our third and last point, which is…
   

3. Work for free…

   …or at least very affordable.

   I’m very well aware of the endless debate of those saying ‘Don’t undersell yourself!’ and those saying to work for free.

   You definitely shouldn’t underprice the value you bring to clients, but wait…what if there are no clients? What if no one’s willing to pay for your services, be it because of your lack of experience or any other reason really?

   Again, we have some risk involved here, and it’s monetary. What did we learn earlier? Minimising risk is key.

   If you want to build a portfolio for something you’ve never done you simply have to consider doing it for free or very little money in order to build a little portfolio, and only then charge people and book more shoots. At the end it pays off.

   Actually that’s what I’m still doing up to date! And it works. I consider it an investment, because those free shoots brought me at least one paid shoot. Consider it an investment as well: An investment in yourself, because you gain experience ut also an investment in your business, because you build leverage over potential clients, simply because you can show off good content you created, and even charge good money.