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Creating the Photograph

Creating the Photograph: Ioana Porav’s “Soul and Beauty”

Chris Gampat
No Comments
03/10/2016
3 Mins read

Last Updated on 06/14/2021 by Chris Gampat

~ Soul and Body~

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they concepted an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Photographer Ioana Porav was born in Romania and now lives in London with her husband. She started to get seriously into photography about a year ago and joined the droves of photographers switching from Canon over to Sony. Ioana learned how to shoot from her husband and by watching videos on YouTube. Her biggest influences: Jason Lanier, Sue Bryce, Emily Soto, etc. And so that explains her creative vision in her image “Soul and Beauty.”

Ioana was found in a Workshop group, and isn’t very technical, but instead edges more towards capturing and emphasizing beauty while creating your own light.

And that’s pretty much what she did with this photo.

The Concept

I am usually a very spontaneous photographer and I don’t think too much before doing a shoot! In maximum two days I am doing it!

I am a lover of old castles, abandoned houses and so on. Being back home for a month I have decided with my husband to do as many shoots I can, combining lovely normal girls with the places that I love!

Basically this was the concept: “The Girls and The Castles.”

The Gear

The Shoot

BTS (2)

On the day of the shoot early in the morning while having my coffee with my lovely husband I said to myself “Let’s call your cousin to speak with some of her friends and go out shooting to Teleky Castle!”

testing my inside flash

The good news was that the girls where living very close to the Castle and said of course we can go anytime because they have time! And off we went o Teleky Castle–like 40 minutes driving from our home, we got there around 4-5 o’clock, we had some walks around the place and I had been introduced to the models by my husband’s cousin and we decided to settle and start preparing our stuff. It took us like two hours to get ready, I did the make up for the girls (3 of them) and while they were choosing what to wear I was setting my camera and lightning! I had brought the dresses, the shoes etc.

So I found that abandoned little room outside the castle and I have started to warm up with my camera and to help the model and after like 20 minutes the lady who was working there came to us and asked us for money if we wanted to stay and shoot, I was so upset because I didn’t have enough money to pay so she didn’t gave us another choice just to leave!

So we have packed our stuff and moved out! Thank God that across the street was that abandoned mill that you see on the photograph. That belonged to the Castle but nobody cared about it.

So we spent our late afternoon on that place and I need to say that was amazing!!

Here are some BTS images

after #Showing my soul#

Smily Ghost Lady

Before (4)

~Framed Girl~

Burned In Shadows

Post-Production

Retouching of the skin on portraiture I did on photoshop; the rest only in Lightroom. I have used clarity, sharpening, highlights and shadows and crop & straighten where necessary and some color treatment. No presets were used.

At that time I was using mostly Lightroom for everything.

Before/After

Before
Before
After
After
camera Ioana Porav sony
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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