Jump!

Jessie, the young lady in the photo above, showed up in front of my camera so full of physical energy it was difficult to bring her down to manageable`shooting levels. And no, there were no tell-tale signs of any tweaky drugs involved. It was just her. When she walked out in front of me in bra and panties and wearing those beat-up Converse sneaks, it should have been my first clue.

I didn't want to relax her too much. I definitely wanted to take advantage of her energy. But keeping her in one spot long enough to snap a few images was difficult. I'm not a sports photographer.

I'll admit her energy was contagious. Almost at once, my ass was up off the apple box it's usually plopped on and I was moving about, trying snag some pics. Unfortunately, it was like herding a cat. She was so energetic! I could barely keep her in one spot long enough to focus, much less keeping here where I needed her to be for my lights to do their jobs the way I wanted them to perform.

Don't get me wrong, I was loving her energy! I simply would have loved it more if I could capture it in focus and close to a spot where one or more of my lights weren't over-exposing her. She was on a 9' wide seamless and the seamless was in a room that didn't afford much space to get my lights very far away from her, especially my back lights set on either side, just off the seamless.

I decided to wear her out a bit. "Let's see you jump," I said.

"Jump?" she asked, a bit of a confused look on her face.

"Yeah, jump. Jump as high as you can from a standing position. And give me some kind of a pose and a great expression while your up there." I told her, pointing towards the top of the seamless with my index finger.

So, jump she did.

"Jump again!" I directed her. She jumped again.

I kept having her jump until she started jumping a little less high each time. And boy! That took more jumps than I thought. I would have been worn out after two or three. But an eighteen year old can jump a lot before tiring.

My client wasn't looking for jumping shots of Jessie. My client was looking for sexy, glam shots. Regardless, I snapped my shutter each time she jumped. I'm a photographer, right? That's what we do. And it was fun doing it! Jessie was also having a blast jumping while I was having a great time photographing her in seemingly gravity-defying ways.

Soon enough, I told her she could quit jumping. I offered her a bottle of H2O and she gulped some of it down while she caught her breath. In a minute or two, we were back making pictures. This time, she kept on her mark yet still displayed plenty of energy: Her energy was now manageable. It was also more emotional and much less physical. We had a great shoot together!