Israel, Artisan Bath & Body's photographer, will write about his experience with taking pictures and what his goals in life are. Hello, my name is Israel and I am Artisan Bath & Body's photographer. Back in early 2012 when my mom wanted to start her own business, I remember watching her struggle on how to start something out of practically nothing. I even researched all throughout the web on how to start an online business, and one of the things that most blogs made clear was that good photography was a priority to every online business. So I told my mom about everything I researched and what was good and what not. We were still a little confused, but we still went ahead and started by sharing my mom's masterpieces on Facebook using pictures taken with a Samsung cellphone - the quality was bad, but at least we tried! Later on December 2012, my dad wanted to help out my mom by taking pictures with the Canon camera he used. I remember my mom got so excited because the quality of the pictures was way better than on the phone. I was very happy for her so I motivated her to open up an Etsy store and use those pictures for people to see her wonderful creations. (Picture 1) There was something I did not like about those pictures, they were not "appealing" and looked "too busy" so I figured it would be a great idea to edit the background and make it white. (Picture 2) Months later, I took a step forward and went ahead and started taking my own pictures, now with fewer soap bars (the reason behind having more than one soap in a picture is to show that design varies from bar to bar). But this time, it was way harder to edit the picture's background - I tried my best at it, but totally failed, haha! (Picture 3) Then I got better at my editing skills. Way better I should say! (Picture 4) And finally, I experimented with a lot of backgrounds, filters, positions, you name it! (Picture 5) ... but I was never happy. The results were astonishing right after I took the pictures, I screamed of excitement because I loved it a lot! But then, one week later, I was over it and thought the picture was horrid. My mom tells me I always want to better my skill - and I guess that's good, right? Anyway, after a year or so of taking pictures and selling online, we got a new camera - a Nikon D3200 - I was super happy about it! I instantly photobombed my whole house and experimented with a million different things to shoot on the perfect lighting. I was obsessed! One of my absolute favorite things to do while I take photos is set a theme based on colors or design. I love including flowers, plants, and other random things into my pictures! You've probably seen that already. I sometimes get really creative and shoot someplace really fun! The only thing I simply do not like about photography has to be color identification. There are times when I want to take a picture of a white item, and it looks yellow/orange in the photo! Also, green also sometimes turn out either very yellow or very blue in the photo. THAT really frustrates me. But I do not let it get to me, I can simply edit it on Photoshop. I adore taking close-ups of things! The macro lens I have really get into detail when it comes to something with texture or design. It's really interesting how we don't really pay attention to things in life, but we love staring at those things in a picture.
My goal with my photography passion (yes passion because it is not my job) is to achieve something I really like - that I don't judge later on after I have taken the picture. I want to continue taking pictures for our business and more than happy to because I LOOOVEEE doing what I do. As far as later on in life, I really want to be like my mom and open my own business (or even continue this one!) and professionally become an entrepreneur. This is it for now. I really hope someone finds this blog post informational and takes something from it. You can follow me on Instagram if you'd like @cervanisrael Stay tuned for more posts! |
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