Member Monday Featuring Jane Vicente
Jane Vicente was selected as this week’s Member Monday spotlight. She is a baby portrait photographer based in Colchester, Essex UK and took this spectacular image!
About the Photo
“You will never regret time spent blowing bubbles” – this image doesn’t have a title, but I shared it under this quote as it seems fitting. This is a friend’s little boy, she asked me to take some photos and in particular, she wanted some of him smiling.
I suggested that we just let him play outside while I take photos and then we would naturally find some smiles in the camera. I took a bubble gun with me as surprise ‘ammunition’ to encourage the smiling playful shots – but I was the one that received the surprise as he just wasn’t interested!! He was definitely having a thoughtful afternoon (although we did get a few smiles in the end).
Gear and Software
I have a Canon EOS 6D and for this shot, I used my 70-200mm as I wanted to be at a distance to give him space to play. I work in both Lightroom and Photoshop to create my edits.
I can spend an inordinate amount of time in photoshop, getting lost in the finer adjustments, of which there can be many with little ones. I’m sure that I will start seeing nostrils in my sleep one of these days!!
Photography Preferences
I started out like most of us taking photos of everything but soon moved into self-portraits (not selfies!) – to work through a difficult period in my life (art is a great healer). Taking photos that represented the words that I was feeling most that week (usually quotes from books I was reading) – I’ve always loved words and pictures. This moved me naturally onto portraits of other people, and, after the birth of my son, I have now found the joy of running around after little ones with the camera.
Even photographing children, I still find that it is the more stoic images that really capture me, I must have some melancholy deep in my soul! I am working hard to set up a photography business, but I am taking my time, trying to perfect my edits (and speed up the nostril cleaning!), as well as the huge amount of stuff to consider on the business side.
Photography Inspiration
I can directly attribute two Kelby instructors to this image (thank you KelbyOne!). Family Photography with Tracy Sweeney gave me the push to lay on the ground with that big lens, which made a lovely perspective but also gave me added elbow support – genius – that thing is heavy! Photoshop for Business with Mark Heaps, his black and white layer style tip has significantly sped up my work in converting images to black and white consistently.
Favorite KelbyOne Classes
There are so many great classes on KelbyOne, but the stand out one for me at the moment is the Photoshop for Business with Mark Heaps – it opened my mind completely as to how I can be more efficient with my editing workflow, which is something that I am in real need of!
The first half of this class was so very helpful that I’d love to see more of his pro-tips. I would also say that the community is also a great teacher – I learn an awful lot from asking questions (everyone is so supportive), and just being nosey at the other conversations and images shared. It is a beautiful group of very wise people!
Go show Jane the support that the KelbyOne community is all about! You can find her work via her website, or Instagram and Facebook pages.
Want to be featured here alongside Jane and our other amazing photographers? We are now taking submissions: https://members.kelbyone.com/get-featured/
