IMPOSING PRINCESS.

On Sunday, I photographed two teenage sisters, Lydia and Amina, as part of a joint project with Gallery252 and Blue World Media Network.  Yesterday, I posted a striking portrait of the older sister Lydia in a hijab.  Today, it's the younger sister Amina's turn to play the starring role!  

Because Amina is just thirteen, we played with different looks, ranging from cute little girl in pigtails to imposing warrior princess.  It was a lot of fun!  (I love it when magic happens in the studio.)

In the warrior princess portrait featured here, Amina adopts a serene regal pose while wearing a (faux) fur cloak that I provided.  To complete the look, I photographed her from a camera angle slightly lower than usual to make her appearance more elegant and imposing.  

The portrait of Lydia in hijab was taken with a mixture of natural and artificial lights in front of a black velour backdrop.  Amina's portrait, on the other hand, used just the natural light for illumination and the white walls of the studio as a backdrop.  Our purpose was to show the versatility of the space as well as to illustrate some of the considerations involved in natural light portraiture indoors.   

For natural light portraits, the first step is to find locations with nice lighting, preferably soft and directional.  Then, the photographer needs to evaluate the suitability of backgrounds within those locations.  Not all locations with nice lighting offer nice backgrounds, so the creative challenge is to arrive at a trade-off that allows beautiful portraits to be made.  

For the warrior princess portrait, I positioned Amina in a small corner of the studio that offered beautiful window light.  Space in the corner was very tight and significantly limited our options with respect to camera angles and posing.  Playing within those constraints, however, was worth the effort.  

As this striking portrait shows, Amina and I did a fabulous job making it work!

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I'd love to capture you and your story in sensitive, timeless portraits.  Call my Northern Virginia portrait and wedding photography studio at 703-729-370 or send me an email.  

My photography studio is conveniently located in Ashburn, Virginia, between Dulles International Airport and Leesburg, just north of the Brambleton shopping center.  

Let's plan something beautiful for you!