I couldn’t have asked for a better subject than Mack. He was kind and patient as it took me several different setups before I achieved the lighting I wanted in the shot. He has a great look and an intriguing personality so I wanted his photo to be really special.
Flare in photographs is a matter of taste. A lot of photographers – fashion bloggers in particular – purposely create flare for aesthetic reasons. Some bloggers (who shall remain nameless) overdo the flare to an annoying level (like, every image in every post…) where the images are so washed-out you can no longer even see the subject matter. I like to get just a touch of rainbows in some of my images if the sun is easy to work with that day. If you watch Breaking Bad closely, you’ll see that the cinematographers use flare whenever they can too.
Since I normally shoot with a compact lens it was great using my friend Andrea’s 75-200mm Nikon the day I photographed her for Blonde Bedhead. Click here to see how differently the flare is refracted in a longer lens compared to the flare generated by my shorter lens in Kristen’s photo above.