Question: What makes a beautiful photo?

In an e-conversation with a friend just now, we hit upon a very interesting subject. She is a very glamourous woman, when she chooses to be and gets the opportunity, and really embraces her make-up kit as a tool to change her appearance and change the way people see her. She posted some fantastic photos on her facebook page which she says are contributing to a make-up look book, purely for herself. The photos are taken simply, with the digital equivalent of the old point and shoot, so there's harsh flash and the white balance is off. In the shots, sometimes she's not looking at the camera, she comes over as sultry and sexy, with arms caught in poses suggesting langour and nonchalance. She's not a model, but the shots make her look fantastic. It was this that brought me onto the subject of beauty, and how to be beautiful.

We see lots of fantastically good looking people at the studio, but unless they are willing to work with the camera, and have their own strong ideas about how the photos will look when they are finished, the results are often pretty standard. At the same time, I've had people walk in and thought there was initially nothing unusual about them, but gone on to produce striking and arresting images. The difference is always confidence.

Part of our job is to put people at their ease, quickly. Only when people are relaxed and confident on our presence are we going to get relaxed and happy images. This is the secret of working with families and young children. But the shimmer of excitement that comes into the room when I realise that I'm working with someone who understands their role in the process, who wants to enjoy the collaboration, trusts my suggestions and can make their own is the special treat for me. When it happens, and it has with kids as young as 5years old, and all ages above, I know I can't go wrong.

Our photo-parties have brought us into contact with some lovely groups of teenage girls. In each group, there's generally the full range of confidence, from really shy and a little awkward, to the totally up-for-whatever, and often it's not distributed the way we'd expect. The initially drop-dead-gorgeous girls can be the most brittle and gawky, and then all the ideas can come from the quietest in the group. When the camera encounters an eye looking straight back, without a nervous smile, or a willingness to create an image out of the ordinary, it's moments like these that make the job so enjoyable.

In the next few weeks, we'll be changing the images on our website, and updating the samples in the studio. Over the Christmas offer promotion we were lucky enough to encounter some fantastic photographic subjects, and they've been kind enough to allow us to use the images for promotion, so we can show off the results of this collaborative knowledge and look.

My conclusion, as I said to my friend, was that beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder, and it's not just in physical appearance. I think it's in the conscious decision to do something to attract visual attention, and the confidence to deal with that look when it is drawn in. When we capture that, whether it's using the little point and shoot or a hi-res studio lit pro-camera, then the result is a beautiful photograph.