The way I enjoy shooting portraits usually involves bringing the person to a state of mind where the subject is relaxed and little concerned with what's going on.

On the first set, we were about 30 minutes into the photo shoot, and I suggested him to stand by the scattered flower petals to add an exciting background to the shot. Most often, primarily when I shoot under even lighting conditions, I encourage the person to look directly into the camera as I move around.

I intentionally took this picture from a higher than normal angle of view to compress the distance scale of the picture; which it is a technique I enjoy a lot lately. I like how makes the subject more prominent on the frame, making the person seem more iconic.

What Camden is doing with his arm on the picture above is entirely his own; there was hardly any direction about what sort of picture I was envisioning. It was awesome to have him express his creativity through the way he was presenting himself to the camera.

Attempting to make a person look refined and idealistic is only a small part of the equation. Recently I started to observe that the shots that give me the most satisfaction are those where the person lets its guard down, shots like that make an honest representation of the person that’s being photographed.