I was recently reading a book on the history of photography and, leafing through its pages, I couldn’t help but appreciate the freedom digital imaging affords us. Looking at early portraits taken on plate cameras – each of which required exposure times of several seconds, if not minutes, due to the low media sensitivity – it was easy to see how restricting that equipment was in terms of composition, backgrounds and lighting conditions.
While studio photography is clearly still a large part of the portrait photographer’s workflow, modern technology allows us to take our setups outside, making use of any location as a stage. Of course, leaving the controlled conditions of a studio space introduces its own challenges. It’s those unique quirks I’m keen to explore today and Paula Stopka is the person armed with all the answers. I’m meeting Paula for a location portrait shoot in London. Cities offer a huge variety of textures and colours to work with but they are also full of distracting details, something that Paula will have to be mindful of when composing her images. I start by asking her what she looks for when first arriving at an outdoor location and how she plans her portraits around
