To pride oneself in being able to call yourself a professional photography studio, is quite a loaded statement, which has to be true to certain standards. That being said, photography is all about creating dimension – because dimension gets lost with photos, the subject can’t be heard, or touched, or smelled, or tasted, and it’s the photographer’s responsibility to bring back a certain dimension, so that the photograph has depth, literally, and figuratively. When we work with the lights in the studio, it is set-up to a way, that it creates the right amount of shadows, which immediately makes for a more of an appealing photograph.

When using it in modeling photography, it’s about using the model’s cheekbones, or the curves of a beautiful neck, or any other of the lovely lines a body consists of.  We use gradual lighting for our maternity shoots as well, because a pregnant tummy has a gorgeous shape, and one can accentuate that so much. Using the lights feathering, and the fall-off towards the side, creates just a little bit of light in small places, like the fold of an arm.

What will actually define you as professional, is being able to use your equipment, in all possible lighting conditions, and knowing what type of result it would give you. When you decide to become a photographer, a very helpful asset to adapt, is the ability to read light, all types, as they all give different results and colourcasts. In the studio, we use equipment set to 5000K, or more, which has the white effect, of sunlight.

Yolandi Jacobsz

Professional Studio Photography