Guest Speaker 3: Nicole Jopek

Nicole is a freelance fashion and beauty photographer and retoucher.

“If you don’t know how to do something, accept the job and figure out how to do it later”.

The key pieces of advice she gave us students who wanted to go into a similar career to her were:

• Know how to replicate natural light in a studio setup

• Shoot work outside of uni projects for portfolio work

• Know when the client’s deadlines are (send photos early if possible)- builds a good reputation

• Make sure you know what the client wants in their photos

• Make the model feel comfortable in shoots- talk to them/ communicate.

• If you don’t know how to do something, accept the job and figure out how to do it later.

She then went through her process of shooting, how she shot her recent work and created gifs for them. She also advised us on different lenses- 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses are her most used ones. I am considering buying this lens in the future as it is the most versatile for portraits, beauty, fashion and commercial photography which I will need to build my portfolio.

She also told us about how she retouches her photos. This is done on photoshop using dodge and burn or frequency separation. Also for Instagram posting, use an app called “preview” which helps with the layout of your feed. This is something that I will consider learning more about and building my skills, separate from my current final project. This talk made me aware of the skills needed for employability.

I found her advice very helpful and her work is the style I am interested in for my future career.

Nicole’s website: http://www.nicolejopek.com/

Screenshot from Nicole’s website