A Photo Shoot at the Polish Seaside

I was going to update you on this photo shoot already a couple weeks ago but because of an extremely busy calendar and lots of photography assignments recently, I'm able to publish these pictures only now.

As some of you might already know, I spent my summer 2010 holidays in Gdansk, Poland, which is actually not only a beautiful town in the north of the country, but it's also my hometown (surprise, surprise! :) ). I managed to convince my friend to model for me (it actually wasn't so hard to convince her) for a photo shoot at the seaside. I always wanted to do a photo shoot at the seaside :)

Although the shoot was in the evening, the light was still quite hard so we did few shots under a pier and then we moved to a little forest just next to the beach. I used Nikon's SB-900 speedlight for all the pictures taken in the forest and also for few of them under the pier.

Garage's Bricked Wall as a Background

I moved to a new apartment with a garage last month. I think the very first thing that crossed my mind was: "that could be an interesting place to take portraits". The old bricked wall in the garage caught my attention immediately and I thought it could be a very interesting background for pictures, especially because of the pattern they give. I took few test shots in the garage after a photo shoot last time. The background made out of bricks looks as I thought - pretty good. I came up with few new ideas for portrait photography and lighting setups for them while doing the test shots and I hope I'll have an opportunity to take few more test shots soon again.

Finding the balance between the theory and practice.

Many aspiring photographers try to find their ways not only on how to enter the photography market, but also on how to effectively and efficiently learn the art of photography. Some of these people find themselves in a rather deadlock - they have the basic knowledge but they can't progress anywhere from there. Such situations quite often occur when we start by reading lots of articles about photography and learning the theory but we forgot the most important thing about photography: it's about taking pictures!

Marika-7

I believe that only taking pictures in order to learn photography is not enough. The same apply when talking about theory - let's face it, you can't be a photographer without taking pictures. But both theory and practice are required to be a photographer, add passion and creativity and you won't only be a photographer but you will have pretty good chances in becoming a good photographer.

Marika-2

So where should be the balance between the theory and practice? In general, I think there is no definite answer to this question. However, I would say that every person who wants to do photography either as a hobby or make living out of it, needs to know at least the minimum of theoretical knowledge. I believe that practice and practical knowledge without the theoretical knowledge can limit an aspiring photographer because for me theory helps you in understanding how various things work, what can be different connections and relations between settings, etc. Such knowledge helps in boosting creativity for sure.

Marika-9

Therefore, I think that everyone should find his and her own balance between the theory: don't let lack of theory limit your photography and don't let practice forget about the theory.

Article Pictures: Marika is a young and aspiring model from Poland. We meet in July for a quick and spontaneous photo shoot in Brussels, Belgium. I have to say that working with her is pure pleasure. We had lots of laugh and fun while shooting.