Pinterest can inspire your session…I think.
Yes of course it can. I’m hesitating because every time I go to Pinterest its like going down a rabbit hole into Wonderland. But, if you can resist getting lost in one rabbit hole after another, you’ve got a shot.
Browsing Pinterest is not only a great source of inspiration, its also a fantastic way to build your mood board. Let me explain.
A mood board is a collection of images, objects, props in a composition. It can be specific, such as pictures in the rain at night, or general as in pictures with a red dress. It can be digital or hardcopy ( I used to tear pages out of magazines of images that inspired me, now I create mood or inspiration boards digitally). As you go through the process of creating a mood board you’ll begin to see a pattern develop. The images you collect will tend to be those that resonate with you. You may not know why you like one or another, there’s just something about it that attracts you. A lot of it has to do with style – portrait style that is attractive to you.
Portrait Styles
It all starts with the ‘style’ of the portrait you are trying to create. No style is right for everyone and it all depends on what you are trying to convey – your story.
There are many different types of portrait styles that include:
- Casual
- Formal
- Informal
- Stylized
- Low-Key
- Hi-Key
The style you choose along with location, greatly affect the ‘feel’ of your portrait to help convey your message. So it all depends on the story you want people to know.
An example of a Low-key portrait would be something like this one of Nikki K with the feather earrings:
While a High-key example would be closer to this one of Crystal T.
Hopefully you get the idea of how this sets the mood or tone of the portrait.
Mood Board
Quite often, we ask our clients to create a mood board to send us on Pinterest or we create one together. This help us ‘see’ into their minds and we get a much clearer idea of what type of portrait they are looking for. Now, lets be clear here. We’re not trying to copy the images we get off Pinterest, we’re using them as a spring board for new ideas and inspiration. It gets everyone’s creative juices flowing and we all usually have a blast coming up with ideas!
So the next time you’re stuck for inspiration check out Pinterest and other similar sites. If you liked these ideas then you may also want to check out our ‘Portrait Session Guide’ for more ideas. You may also want to check out our post on Personalizing Your Session or Creating a Theme.
Thanks for reading these tips. I hope you consider using them . I’m excited for you to try these ideas, and think you will produce some eye popping images.
While this is on your mind you might consider letting us do the work for you. We can light and pose you to flatter you to create an eye popping, stop-in-your-tracks portrait. We can set up a time to call, chat and see if we’re a good fit for each other. We call it the DISCOVERY.