“So I’m thinking about bringing a sword and some other toy weapons. What do you think?” came the question over the phone.

“Sounds like fun, Kay. I’ll see you tomorrow evening” I said, and truly believed this would be a fun shoot.

The client on the line was my friend and insurance agent, Kay Cordell. Kay has a thriving insurance business near Old Hickory, TN and she was looking to create a fun persona for her company’s Facebook page and she came up with the Insurance Ninja.

To create the Insurance Ninja, we had to strike a balance between “Professional by day” and “Ninja by Night” so a black suit worked out perfectly. Kay, being  Kay, and having two small children had several “Ninja-esque” toys like swords and sais and she brought a variety to my home studio.

To make these shots easy to work into online use, the background was kept a simple, infinite white using a nine foot wide seamless paper backdrop. Lighting was also kept simple using two 36X48” softboxes, one on each side of Kay as she performed her poses.

Technical knowledge is obviously necessary to get a good shot, but it is easy to get mired in all the little details (ask me how I know) so keeping things simple is also important. This allows one to concentrate their efforts on working with the model to get them performing their best.

With Kay, getting great looks and enthusiasm was easy. She had a good idea of what she wanted already and she is not afraid to put herself “out there” to get the shot(s) she’s looking for. The photos speak for themselves and as one can guess, we had a lot of fun doing these.

My only regret was not having more room in the home studio to get some more angles and poses without running off of our limited background space. An Insurance Ninja “2.0” photo shoot may be in order in the near future!

Kay Cordell is an insurance agent (Ninja!)  representing preferred carriers such as Travelers, Met Life, Safeco, Progressive, Hartford, Grange, and many more. You can reach out to Kay and her company by going to http://www.cordellinsuranceagency.com/.