focal length: 50 mm
shutter speed: 1/125
aperture: f/8.0
ISO: 320
flash: fired

I had the pleasure of doing some headshots for my dear friend Shula Klinger, published author and illustrator. A few years ago, she published a brilliant novel for young adults, “The Kingdom of Strange”. Check out her site, Shula Klinger, Young Adult Author, for details. I had done a few shots for her back then and wanted to give her some new photographs to promote her work.

A shot from a session we did a few years back.

Tonight, Shula will be giving a free talk in the company of a few other authors and illustrators at the Vancouver Public Library downtown.

Here’s the info about the talk:

Interested in writing or illustrating books for young readers? Join seven professional children’s authors and illustrators to find out how they broke into this exciting and competitive field and how they built their careers.

You can also listen to her read her essay entitled “Mother and Othering: or How to fail as an Academic”, which aired on The Sunday Edition for CBC Radio. Go to the very end of the page and click on “Listen to Hour Three” and she begins her essay 39:40 minutes into the segment.

For this shoot, we decided to do some simple head shots indoors that could easily be converted to black and white. With any shoot, I love to experiment with different poses, lighting, angles, expressions, hair placement and crops (in camera).

In this particular shoot, we used 2 lights and a reflector. Key light was behind a shoot-through umbrella on camera right. A background light at low power for a little separation and a reflector on camera left to lift up the shadows a bit.

A little boldness and confidence.

And don’t forget to have a little fun!

I’ll be heading out to the talk tonight downtown to take some promotional photos for Shula. Hope to see you there!

Laura is a Vancouver wedding and portrait photographer. Visit laurahana.com.