It can be difficult to come up with an attractive way to shoot a figure like this. Satsuki isn’t exactly what you would call exciting or dynamic, but she does have the advantage of having an unusual backstory. That led to the idea for the main shoot, which was to put her up on a stage with a big election banner behind her. It didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped it would, as is often the case when I haven’t thought things through. This time, I didn’t adequately account for the glare coming off the background, and the wood panel serving as the backdrop doesn’t look that great, either.

When I photograph a figure, I often try to use at least two ideas. This lets me inject some variety into the post (albeit at the cost of consistency) and more importantly, it gives me a fallback option in case one idea doesn’t pan out. It also gives me the opportunity to do something unusual, unexpected, and in many cases, to learn to do something I’ve never tried before.
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