Glamour Photography | Photographing in a Client's Home

OK. So this is a follow-up to a post I wrote a little while ago: Work with What You Have. I still get a lot of questions about how and where I do what I do and this was a perfect opportunity to practice what I preach. I was recently on vacation at a friend's home and she asked me if I would mind taking some photos of her since she hadn't had anything recent done in a while. She didn't want a boudoir shoot, just some classic fun photos. So what you see below is all in her home. This was a very last-minute shoot that was done right before we had to leave. Everything was taken in about 45 minutes and my friend changed her clothes and her look at different times for a different feel.

You'll see I cropped in close and I always photographed right by a window. I didn't use any reflectors or flashes. This is all natural light and with my 50mm at 1.8. I chose 1.8 because it's a softer setting and we gals that are starting to show our wise wrinkles could use the help sometimes. :) I did edit the photos by applying a skin smoothing software. I also increased contrast for a pop, whitened the whites of her eyes and increased saturation on her pupils. I did this all in about 15 minutes. And here's a tip: don't over-edit. For one thing it's too time-consuming and for another thing you still want your client to look like themselves....not a cartoon-perfect version of themselves. When you can't see pores, teensy crinkles or even freckles on a person it's not really them, is it?? Remember: you're capturing her, not her perfect alter-ego. If you can really capture her essence then you have already captured her perfection.