Join Tamara for an interview with commercial photographer and SCAD grad Anna Young Byrd, who works out of Sulfur Studios. She fell in love with Savannah at age 12 when her sister came to attend SCAD, and has now lived here since 2017. Two years out of school, she's at such an exciting time in her career - just about to transition into doing her freelance photography full-time!
Anna's goal during a shoot is to make the subject feel like "the coolest person ever," and her dream project would be shooting Dave Grohl for a Rolling Stone cover.
The main design element she focuses on in her work, especially during the editing process, is color. From her site: "Anna is a forward-thinking, hard-working, and inquisitive artist. She is the first to introduce herself, the first to think, and the first to solve a problem. Her fulfillment in life is to bring joy to others. What better way to do that than taking some kickass photos."
Check out Anna's work and follow her here:
https://www.annayoungbyrd.com/
https://www.instagram.com/annas_eyeball/
Topics in their chat include:
How being a people person is so beneficial to her work in making her photo subject feel comfortable as quickly as possible; how coming to Savannah and finding other creative people made her transition from introversion to extroversion; using a digital Nikon as her first camera when she was young and experimenting; how the current trendy look in digital photography is to make it look like it was done with film - light leaks, grain, dust marks - i.e. the perks of digital but with the aesthetics of film; an added bonus of working in photography is working with her hands - putting lights and backgrounds together, and breaking things down; how getting her "big boy camera" allows her to take photos with huge file sizes, big enough to print at billboard size; the importance of using a reference photo to show clients her inspiration/direction/essence of her idea; she takes us through the start-to-finish process of a shoot; how choosing the wrong music once hurt her connection with a model on a shoot; being the creator of her set; how photography is the study and control of light; what is a "treatment book?"; how one's artistic community can help each other through imposter syndrome; and the elaborate setup and editing process it took to create her beautiful shot of a Neutrogena jar leaning over in water.
Tune in and get all the details!